Why it takes strong business skills to unravel complex world of bulk wine, says Twin Thieves’ Richard Leaver
By Richard Siddle
There are many routes for wine professionals in to the world of bulk wine, but few would have been involved in the selling of millions of packs of butter and margarine along the way. But Richard Leaver is different. Or at least his career has been. For his journey into wine actually started out working in a very different part of the grocery business. Namely razors with Gillette and then a whole range of household goods during his four years with Unilever in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
It is, though, the disciplines, or what he calls “the rigour” that he learnt during those years in FMCG that he says have been invaluable in building a new career in wine.
Which is what he is currently doing again, having decided, in 2010, at the height of the recession, to set up his own wine import, bulk distribution and consultancy business, Twin Thieves, after a series of high profile corporate wine roles. Positions that have seen him gain experience right across the wine industry from working directly with major grocers and specialist drinks retailers, building up and developing wine brands and portfolios, particularly during his time at Fosters, before heading up the commercial division for Chile’s Santa Rita Estates across Europe.
Jobs that he now believes put him in a good position to be able to work both with major wine producers and co-operatives and find them the right end customers to sell their wine to.
Be that thousands of bottles of wine or a container or two of bulk wine, Leaver is happy to act as the facilitator, if you like, to make it all happen. Although running your own business is always a challenge and more risky than being part of a corporate machine, Leaver could not be happier.
It also means being far more on top of all the major wine trends and agendas taking place around the world and not being fixated on whatever wines and brands your corporate business is involved in, he stresses. Through Twin Thieves he is effectively working in three main areas: consulting directly with wine businesses to help them develop new areas of business; working in an agency capacity for premium brands and wineries around the world; and sourcing and managing bottled and bulk wine wine, mainly from Spain, from which it can draw a commission.
Management skills
Leaver has been able to bring the management skills learnt from his corporate life in to planning and plotting the best way to source wine in his own business.
“There is a lot of passion in the wine industry, but of the rigour, the business disciplines, are missing,” he explained.
It is why Twin Thieves is so involved in the Spanish wine market, and bulk wine, in particular.
“When I decided to go it alone I did what any good corporate person would do. I looked at the numbers. It was clear Spain was the country to look at.” It was then that he was introduced to his business partner, Domingo Miguel, who has strong, direct contacts with major Spanish producers and co-operatives.
In a relatively short period of time they have built the business up to be handling around 7m litres of bulk wine a year and is currently shipping 14m bottles to the UK alone.
It works with a number of wineries, but chiefly with Bodegas Paniza in Cariñena in Zaragoza and a co-operative in Viñas Almirante in Rias Baixas. It is also sourcing wine in La Mancha, with Bodegas Lozano and Extremadura. It has also reached over in to Portugal and works with Parras Wines near Lisbon. The bulk side of the business has also taken him to Australia where he works in the Riverland region.
The bulk side of the business has also taken him to Australia where he works in the Riverland region.
Bulk wine is an area that Leaver admits is not an area he was not heavily involved in his previous roles. He now finds it fascinating. Be it shipping wine all around the world, or just between wineries in a particular country.
“We work in a number of different ways. We have even bulk shipped oak aged wines.”
“The first thing you realise is that bottled wine and bulk wine are two radically different markets,” he adds. “I have learnt a great deal about bulk wine and certainly made mistakes along the way. But the two key things to get right are speed and flexibility.” He has been increasingly attracted to what he sees as the far more complex bulk wine market than he would otherwise appreciated.
“You have got to make decisions quickly. It’s a case of “do you want to buy this wine or not”. If you don’t act then it will be sold elsewhere.” Equally the level of controls and quality around bulk wine has increased enormously. “You are now having to find ways of cold stabilising 26,000 litres of wine. You need the equipment to do that.”
Commercial skills
But being able to see the commercial value and opportunity in wine at what are often entry level price points requires very specific skills. “It requires commercial level tasting skills,” says Leaver. “It is why I am proud to have my wine in Aldi and Tesco. That is wine that real consumers are buying and drinking.”
He added: “At Unilever I was used to selling yellow fats. I have always been drawn to working with mass consumer products that people want.”
Leaver is certainly a business man. Although on the face of it Twin Thieves is involved in three very different business areas, Leaver is always looking for synergies and opportunities that might arise which another part of its business can get involved in.
But that’s the beauty of the modern wine industry. Yes, there are still specific channels of the trade, but how the wine gets to be sold in them can come from a multitude of different routes. It is their job, if you like, to connect all the different cogs.
“We will try different models to make things work,” says Leaver.
“The classic distribution model has evaporated. Being all things to all people just does not work anymore,” claims Leaver.
He also dismisses the notion that most countries wine buying power is in the hands of a handful of people in the biggest retailers or distributors. There are, for him, now so many different routes to market. It is, for example, doing good business and good volumes of wine with Virgin Wines and its direct to consumer, online model.
“The challenge for people like me is to adapt my business model to find the best route to market for my wineries and customers,” says Leaver.