Delving into the World of Wine Retail

So, last weekend, Yorkshire Vintners opened its doors to the public! For 10 years we’ve been a company focused on our trade customers and decided earlier this year that we’re missing a trick not providing for the good people of Ripon and the surrounding areas.

It’s been a daunting experience – retail is certainly not a flourishing sector. Except for our colleague, Mark Ryan, who has a wealth of experience with wine retail, the rest of us are a little green. What do people want from retail today? What can we offer to create loyalty and strong relationships with our customer base? We’ve started with what we know best – an exciting, eclectic, and delicious selection of wines, beers and spirits at all price points. Our challenge as wine merchants is to give our customers value for money at all levels and we’re confident we achieve this, along with lots and lots of choice.

What we need to quickly discover, is what our customers want from us. We’re always going to have open bottles to showcase, making for an experiential visit every time someone comes through the door. We’re going to host regular masterclasses and tastings, doing promotional offers, inviting producers down to meet our customers. But, cracking this retail game is going to be trial and error and will inevitably depend upon the personalised experience that we can provide for our customers, ensuring we enable them to delve deeper into the fascinating, challenging and strikingly beautiful world of wine.

We welcome our customers’ feedback and look for their direction on ensuring that we do everything we can to make Yorkshire Vintners the ‘go to’ place for all things wine in Ripon.