A rewarding week for The Society

It was a great honour to receive on behalf of our members and The Society the National Retailer of the Year award at the Decanter World Wine Awards presentation dinner at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden on Wednesday (pictured right with judge Anthony Rose). Being rushed off straight away afterwards to do a video-interview was a bit unexpected though! You can see it here.

Following so closely on the heels of our successes at Tuesday evening’s International Wine Challenge (IWC) Awards (see Ewan’s earlier blog entry), it has proved to be a wonderfully rewarding week for The Society. The IWC had also voted The Society the Wine Merchant and Wine Club of the year, as well as the Specialist Merchant for both Alsace and Chile.

In their citations, the judges recognised nearly every part of the business from the range and quality of our wines to the excellent levels of service provided to members and the recent innovations that we have introduced. At the heart of our success, I believe, lies our mutuality which allows us to focus on member satisfaction and quality rather than on the financial returns required for external shareholders. These awards are a testament to the hard work of our buyers and staff and I offer my congratulations to all concerned.

I was particularly pleased to see that we won, for the fourth consecutive year, the Specialist Merchant Award for Alsace. Congratulations to buyer Marcel Orford-Williams for once again ensuring members have the pick of Alsace’s wines to choose from.

This is also the fourth time that the IWC judges have voted our Chilean range the country’s finest. But rather than resting on his laurels, buyer Toby Morrhall is constantly refining and improving the range and unearthing new wines for us all to enjoy, just as he has done each year since first championing these wines.

In Decanter’s report of the awards they questioned whether: “The ‘committee of gentlemen’ who met in the Albert hall in 1874 to set up a co-operative … would recognise their offspring in this victor.” I like to think that while they may find our ever-evolving website, our new iPhone app and state-of-the-art warehouse a tad confusing, they would find our ethos of the uppermost integrity and commitment to outstanding quality and fair pricing entirely recognisable.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sarah Evans
Chairman