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Published: 14 November, 2025
Hospitality is an extremely wasteful industry. According to Juliane Caillouette Noble, MD of the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA), this is because the sector operates on a linear economy model, where goods are used then thrown away. The aim of her organisation is a more ‘circular’ future, which means redesigning supply chains and rethinking the lifecycle of products so resources are reused for as long as possible. In a circular economy, recycling is a last resort, especially with the amount of ‘recycling’ that goes to landfill. Attendees of the launch learned that circularity is intimately connected to so-called zero-waste solutions (defined as diverting at least 90% of waste from landfill by reducing and reusing resources) as resources are reused, lowering business waste.
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Published: 12 November, 2025
When 67 Pall Mall first opened its doors in December 2015, even the most optimistic would be impressed by the growth of the fine wine private members club. The London organisation began with around 1,500 members, with this number having now risen to just over 3,800. Across 67 Pall Mall’s global membership – including sister clubs in Verbier and Singapore, and resident membership in Hong Kong – this number swells to almost 10,000. What better litmus test for shifting preferences among fine wine aficionados (and the wine industry itself, with 12% of membership drawn from the trade) than the frequenters of 67 Pall Mall? In its London Fine Wine Trends Report, the club presents the changing buying habits and personal proclivities of its London base. As Harpers discovered, new regions have risen, with some remaining resolutely popular.
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Published: 11 November, 2025
At this year’s Sustainability in Drinks (SID) conference, producers, suppliers, merchants and figures from across the wine trade came together to talk all things sustainability. Harpers was at the buzzy event at Christ Church Spitalfields, hearing from people at the cutting edge of sustainable wine. One clear theme that emerged was the importance of remaining accountable to one’s own environmental commitments. Certifications can be gained but also lost – developing approaches which can guarantee progress and prevent this from happening is vitally important for the industry. Harpers spoke to two inspiring figures to show how change can be safeguarded and enhanced, from above and below.
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Published: 10 November, 2025
Stamina is not only needed by revellers at this time of year but also spirits suppliers, who need to sate the cyclical rise in demand for everything from single malt to mezcal. Harpers spoke to distributors – whose agility and innovation set the standard for UK spirits suppliers – about their expectations for the Yuletide period.
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Published: 07 November, 2025
The Wee Vinoteca founder Duncan Ganmmie was daunted by his first job as a sommelier. A venue with 450 bins, he felt he would never be able to remember all the different wines. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.
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Published: 05 November, 2025
Adapt or risk failure – that was a sentiment expressed more than once when Harpers asked independent wine merchants whether more could be done to diversify customer bases and specifically attract more women.
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Published: 03 November, 2025
For sherry aficionados in the trade, few achievements are more rewarding than transforming a geek-centric niche into a mainstream phenomenon. Yet while this remains a formidable challenge, a growing number of on-trade advocates are proving that, with the right positioning, storytelling and training, this venerable fortified category can drive both engagement and margins. So, what’s the secret? Step one, says sherry producer and importer González Byass, is to break down misconceptions and educate consumers about the category’s incredible versatility.
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Published: 31 October, 2025
A new generation of winemakers has recharged the country’s standing in the on-trade. Hamish Graham reports.
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Published: 29 October, 2025
Gone are those days when buying Rioja meant choosing between crianza, reserva or gran reserva – designations that indicated how long the wine had been aged, usually in oak, with the price rising accordingly. Although old style, heavily oaked Riojas are still made, producers are more focused on expressing terroir and increasingly inclined to make wines that show fruit and freshness, using authorised varieties like Garnacha and Graciano alongside Tempranillo. At the same time, almost all producers are making rosado and white wines.
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Published: 27 October, 2025
In a region primarily known for Albariño, plenty of winemakers are uncovering the potential in blends and lesser-known grapes, finds Andrew Catchpole.
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Published: 24 October, 2025
Harpers invited some of the bigger producers and importers of Spanish wine to comment on what they are focused on in terms of both sales and marketing and where they see any openings or challenges for Spanish wine in the UK. Many said that Spain is a region with a strong position and a lot of potential, which presents both opportunities and difficulties for those in Spanish wine – one of the most-emphasised points was the necessity of consumer education, as a lack of knowledge may be holding Spain back.
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Published: 22 October, 2025
Fuelled in no small part by its ongoing holiday romance with Spain, the UK is the Mediterranean country’s third most successful wine export market behind France and Italy. Ever since the term ‘Costa Blanca’ was coined to promote Spanish tourism in the late 1950s, Brits have been soaking up the culture, food and drink along with the sun.
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Published: 20 October, 2025
Once a stalwart of Bordeaux and still the dominant grape of Cahors, these days Malbec seems more at home in Argentina, where it is unequivocally the country’s flagship variety. Planted on 47,000ha, across 12 different provinces, Malbec accounts for more than 42% of red plantings and a quarter of the country’s harvest.
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Published: 17 October, 2025
Over the past 15 years, Champagne’s premium swagger has been tested to the max. In key global markets – not least the UK – retail and on-trade sparkling wine lists have diversified considerably, while consumers are increasingly price sensitive amid the cost-of-living crisis. The result is a complex market evolution for Champagne: one that mixes pain with opportunity.
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Published: 15 October, 2025
At 1.2kg, the bottle on the table was heavy enough for it to be hard to tell how much wine was in it. But as chief winemaker Ana María Cumsille explained, the biggest market for Viña Carmen Gold, the Chilean producer’s top cuvée, was China, and consumers there “associate weight with quality”. A few weeks later I related this story to a manager at Ardagh glass in Barnsley as I toured their bottle factory. He joked: “We could get three out of one of those!” – and indeed the bottles coming off the production line in front of us weighed just 400g or less.
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Published: 13 October, 2025
A recent string of restaurant closures associated with chef Victor Garvey has revealed the potential for improvement in the wine trade to avoid being stung by rogue actors.
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Published: 09 October, 2025
Writing about the state of the drinks trade over the past year, it can be hard not to get drawn towards a general sense of gloom. Amid the frustration at a raft of government policies that have unfairly hamstrung the sector, from off-trade to on, one thing that has become clear is the industry is willing to fight for a fairer legislative landscape. The recent revelation that duty receipts have been in decline despite the February tax hike shows that those frustrated across the wine and spirits world were lucid in their critique. Calls for change are all the more vital at present given the Budget is due to be announced on 26 November. Harpers sought the perspective of leading industry figures before the government’s next key policy announcement.
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Published: 08 October, 2025
The growth in exports of Portuguese wines to the UK over the past 10 years has been nothing less than remarkable. According to data from Wines of Portugal, the overall volume of Portuguese wine sales to the UK almost doubled between 2015 and 2024, rising from 9.6m litres to just shy of 16.9m. Over the same period, the value growth has been even more impressive jumping from just under €21.5m (£18.8m) to well over double that figure at €48.5m (£42.3m). This growth did not go unnoticed at one of Portugal’s most well-known drinks producers – the Fladgate Partnership. In a first for a company whose flagship product Taylor’s Port dates back over 330 years, the producer added table wine to its portfolio in August 2023 after acquiring Ideal Drinks, taking ownership of estates in Bairrada, the Vinho Verde and the Dão.
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Published: 06 October, 2025
Two quite quirky facts about LWC come as a bit of a surprise, not least given the scale and success of what has grown over 45 years to become the UK’s largest independent drinks wholesaler. The first is that the company was born in – or at least because of – a pub in Edale, Derbyshire, initially being set up to self-supply drinks to the satisfaction of The Old Nag’s Head’s new owner and others like him. The second is that LWC simply stands for Licensed Wholesale Company, with founder (and pub owner) Robin Gray clearly not overly concerned about creating a market-slick name. This, though, is a company that clearly ‘does what it says on the tin’, and from those modest origins still continues to grow.
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Published: 01 October, 2025
The Sommelier Wine Awards (SWA) is more than just a blind wine tasting with medals. The very nature of the competition – on-trade-exclusive wines, judged solely by people who buy wine for hospitality venues – means that it’s also a great chance to get a somms’-eye view of what is happening in the on-trade supply chain.
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