When it comes to the multi-million-pound wine market on these islands, James Nicholson has always been at the forefront of the industry, travelling the world sourcing high quality wines.
“We work tirelessly to find intelligently made wines that we can release to clients around the £10 bracket, “ he says. “Below that, it’s really Government duty and VAT.”
But what he and his growing team at JN Wine do is shift a lot of cases and bottles of wine, not just from their long-established shop and 10,000 sq.ft. warehouse in the County Down village of Crossgar, but also from a warehouse close to Dublin Airport and from its more recent London acquisition, Highbury Vintners, based at Islington in the north of the city.
Winning the coveted title of Northern Ireland’s best wine retailer (for a record-breaking 30th time) as well as being named the leading small independent merchant in the UK – both at the recent International Wine Challenge Awards in London – James and his team are clearly doing something right.
It’s a business built on specialist knowledge of wine, not just James Nicholson’s many years of experience working directly with growers across Europe and beyond, but that of the wider team. But it’s also a business built on a choice of ways to buy.
“A lot of our customers prefer to come into the shop, take a look around, talk to one of our experts, and some of them travel a long way to do that on a regular basis. A sizeable percentage of our customers here in Crossgar travel up from the south to buy their wine.”
But a fleet of vans covers the other buying route. Customers can buy their wines, by case or bottle, online and have it delivered to their door.
Perhaps not surprisingly, JN Wine didn’t do too badly during the Covid pandemic. “There was a real boom in online wine sales. I think most of us had a few glasses during the height of the pandemic to help us get through the whole thing.
“I found myself back in the warehouse, working a fork lift truck and loading up the vans. It was like going back to my roots in this business. When I started out, I sold wine to my customers from the back of an estate car.”
The business has grown steadily through the years and won a string of national awards into the bargain. In Northern Ireland terms, JN Wine ranks as the leading independent wine merchant by some distance.
The company has been active in the ROI marketplace for 24 years. There, the business is purely mail order/online, operating from a large warehouse outside Dublin but sending wine to customers the length and breadth of Ireland.
The move into the London market back in 2019 was a bold move by any standards, and a significant investment, by JN Wine several years ago. “We’d thought about it for quite a while before we actually did it,” says James Nicholson. “We were always going to do it by acquisition and we had to wait for the right opportunity to come our way.”
That opportunity came in the shape of Highbury Vintners, a long established independent wine merchant operating from a site on Highbury Park that has been selling wine since the early 1900’s.
“It is such a well-established and trusted brand in North London that we never seriously considered transferring the JN Wine name over there. But it has certainly been a big success for us, and we’re lucky to have a superb team on site at Highbury. They’re so good that I’m only over there every couple of months.”
But that doesn’t mean that he’s sitting behind his desk in Crossgar. He still spends at least a couple of months a year travelling the vineyards and wine producing areas of the world, especially those in Europe.
He also admits to being something of a workaholic. “I could be taking it a bit easier. Maybe I should be playing a bit more golf (he’s a member at Royal County Down)” he says. “But I still love this business, and I have trouble getting away from the idea that I should be in here at half eight in the morning and not go home until 6.
“Knowledge and attention to detail is crucial. And continued investment is also important. You can run a bad business cheaply. But it’s always going to be expensive to run a good business.”
The wine business always has its trends, something that James Nicholson has grown used to over the years. “There is big growth in demand for organic wines at the moment,” he points out. “We’ve been through a process to certify us to advise on and sell organic wines, and that included an inspection of our warehouse and processes. So it’s all taken very seriously.”
Back in the wine producing regions, there has been a major shift towards sustainable farming techniques and we’re also seeing growth in what are known as low intervention wines, using minimal amounts of sulphites, for example.
On the other side of the coin, there is also a move towards health warning labelling in some countries, including Ireland. It’s not an idea that will enthuse any wine lover and James Nicholson is clearly sceptical although circumspect about the move.
What’s next on the agenda for a company that has spread its wings over recent years?
With a second home in the Algarve, he’s actively considering the idea of setting up an operation in Portugal but that one is a long way off as yet.
“As things stand, business is going very well. The out workings of Brexit haven’t done us any harm at all – despite what some might claim in other sectors – and we’re confident that we can grow our sales here in Northern Ireland, across Ireland and over in London, where we’re always on the look-out for new sites or potential new acquisitions.
“So we’ve got a bit of growth left in us yet…”