5 reasons to buy from Cambridge Wine Merchants

Hal Wilson, founder of Cambridge Wine Merchants explains how his staff have been going the extra mile - and how his customers have been responding.

"A week ago we were drinks wholesalers and retailers with welcoming wine bars. Today we are none of those things, our business plan swept away on a viral riptide.

Amazingly, though, my exceptional team is refashioning what we are, with the conviction that we can and will reimagine our purpose. Maybe it is the long hours or the large glass of Rosso del Palazzone taking their toll but I am deeply moved by this shared endeavour, in which we all have a role (whether working or furloughed).

1. Existing and new customers are finding our website, reading our emails and posts, sending their orders, their money, their love. Ruth Turner thanked us for being her 'fourth Emergency Service'!

2. Our logistics team is working 16 hour days to deliver cases to strangers’ doorsteps, while maintaining strict social distance.

3. Our sales team has gone into creative overdrive to repurpose our inventory for a new market, a different world. Wines destined to be enjoyed in restaurants now need to grace the isolated dinner table so everyone’s cooking better to be up to scratch!

4. Our buyers extend that sense of solidarity to our growers, with whom we build the path from grape to glass. Winemakers are just as vulnerable to the economic consequences of this outbreak as everyone else and we desperately want to keep working with the likes of Simon and Monica Coulshaw at Domaine des Trinités in Faugeres after this is over. For some it will be one crisis too many to weather, after years of climate change-induced short harvests.

5. Self-employed educators and journalists are also in our thoughts and plans, as we support WSET tutors like Steve Hovington to go online or distribute local magazines like Anne Beamish’s The Indie.

The future may be uncertain but the present is intensely real. And I’m proud to be part of it.

Take a look at what we're doing at www.cambridgewine.com

PS the above image brings back memories of the last time I was as exhausted as I feel now, winning The Ardbeg Peat Football World Cup. It reminds me of our solidarity, of being almost literally in the s**t together!

5 Reasons is a free platform for small food and drink producers, importers and retailers to talk about what they do. See What is 5 Reasons all about? for a fuller explanation.

If you’d like be able to check out all the food and wine pairings on the site you can buy a bundle of credits here to access my premium content.

And/or for regular updates on what and where I’ve been eating, drinking and travelling sign up for my weekly newsletter Eat This, Drink That, Live Well.