Wine consultancy services explained

If you are searching for wine consultancy you will need to firstly understand what service(s) you are seeking. Wine consultancy covers a wide range of services from supporting you with your wine cellar collection to advising wineries how best to enter the UK market. A search for 'wine consultancy London' on Google will give you a long list of many varied suppliers, it will pay you to search through several pages of results and pick multiple websites to get a wider picture of services on offer.

For this article, we will focus on those looking for wine consultancy to help increase brand awareness and sales in the UK market. This is a highly competitive segment of the consultancy sector and also hugely demanded.

So, you are looking for help to get your wines into the UK market? Maybe you are looking to increase your winery brand awareness and even the specific terroir you are based? Then again, you may already be present and simply looking to increase your distribution...

Having worked with many wineries globally, we generally find that the following are the services of consultancy that are most popular:

• Help with how to import to the UK market to include customs paperwork, duty fees, logistics. Compliance and licensing fees.

• Suitable branding for the UK to include name / identity and also legal requirements.

• Market insights to include direct competition, potential sales (and routes), suitable retailers / importers / distributors to include their reputations. Pricing and market positioning.

• Storage in the UK and logistics to include having wines in bond.

• Manage events to include private tastings, masterclasses, dinners, launch parties and also event collaborations / sponsorships.

• Showcasing wines to relevant industry professionals to include buyers / sommeliers / senior wine critics.

• To take on a brand ambassador role and cover UK administration.

The UK market for wine is massive, it is highly competitive and any international wine / winery that wishes to enter and maintain a presence, really requires a dedicated representative on the ground so to stay 'alive' in the marketplace.

The UK market is very price sensitive, especially at the main bottom price end. It is important to remember that around 97.5% of wine sales in the UK are at £10 and under - The fine wine sector is tiny and contains massive brands from around the world to include those from Bordeaux and Champagne.