A CELLAR’S MARKET

While building on 300 years of tradition, London-based wine merchant SIMON BERRY is taking his company to the next level by exploring the industry’s newest frontier: Asia. He talks to SIMON TAM

THE CHAIRMAN OF Britain’s oldest wine merchant is nursing a secret passion. Simon Berry, the man at the helm of Berry Bros & Rudd, which has supplied wine to the royal family since the reign of George III, says he’d love to write a screenplay. “I’d call it The Devil Drinks Petrus,” he reveals gleefully.

A seventh-generation wine merchant, Berry would no doubt have plenty of delectable details for the screenplay of his dreams. The firm dates back 310 years to when it was set up as a coffee and tea-trading business by the Widow Bourne on St James’s Street in London. Ever since George Berry began to develop the company’s wine business in the 19th century, the family has been involved with the grape – and if heading up a firm that has counted the Aga Khan and Lord Byron as clients were not enough, Berry was last year awarded the rather grand title of Clerk of the Royal Cellars.

He heads a committee, comprising eminent personalities such as Jancis Robinson and Michel Roux, as well as representatives of the other four royal warrant-holding wine merchants, which chooses the wines that are served at royal banquets. “It’s more like choosing wines for a hotel than a private dinner, because of the size of the events,” Berry says.

The committee is also responsible for stocking the royal cellars, which fortunately are large enough for space never to be an issue. “When there’s a state visit, we’d go down to the cellar and take a look at what we have. If we’ve done our job right, we should have the right sort of things waiting for us.”

Conflicts of interest are avoided by tasting wines blind, Berry says. Each merchant on the committee – Justerini & Brooks, Berry Bros & Rudd, Corney & Barrow, John Harvey & Sons and Waitrose Wine Direct – send in a list of wines in different price brackets, the budget being defined by the Keeper of the Privy Purse. While Waitrose might fill the need for everyday wine, the other merchants are useful in buying wines en primeur, a practice that has now become more common.

So far, Berry has overseen the wine list of three state visits, including that of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who famously doesn’t drink. Berry had his eye on the 1961 Château Margaux in the cellars, but was warned he’d have a hard time convincing the government representative that this wasn’t too extravagant a choice. In the end, he tricked his way in by first suggesting serving Italian wine in a nod to the nationality of Carla Bruni, President Sarkozy’s wife. When the horrified government servant then said they must serve something “French and good,” Berry happily suggested the Margaux.

More controversial was the decision to serve English wine when the Indian head of state visited. “Members of the royal household had been saying that we should be flying the flag a bit more. Since we’ve had long connections with India, we thought [the English grape] Bacchus was a good choice,” says Berry.

He’s pragmatic about his role in the palace. “What’s important when you’re selling wine is not to make that one sale, but to keep the customer coming back. It’s the same whether it’s the queen or someone in Kowloon. It’s the relationship that’s important.”

It’s a lesson Berry imbibed through long experience in the trade. He joined the family firm in 1977 as marketing director after two years working with some of the most renowned names in the French wine business – Moët & Chandon in Champagne, M Chapoutier in the Rhône, Château Mouton-Rothschild in Bordeaux, and Prosper Maufoux in Burgundy. He took over as chairman from Christopher Berry Green in 2005.

Berry admits that the job enables him to sample some really fine wines but quickly adds: “It’s a myth that the best wines are drunk by me.” His favourite wine moment, he says, involved sitting beside Bordeaux grandee Peter Sichel and savouring a 1961 Palmer after he’d donated the wine to the Century Club.

Being part of a highly regarded family business does mean rubbing shoulders with a number of luminaries. It’s telling that one of his favourites is poet Hilaire Belloc, beloved of oenophiles for his Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine. “He gave the best speech ever at a dinner hosted by my grandfather. Everyone thought he would read his famous poem. Instead he stood up, said ‘I’m too drunk’ and sat down.”

Given its long history, it would have been easy for Berry Bros & Rudd to get entrenched in the past. Instead, the firm has been an innovator – its website is the second-most visited wine site in the world, and its Future of Wine Report created a stir when it was released in 2008.

Despite the report’s prediction that by 2058 China will be the world’s biggest producer of wine, Berry remains confident of London’s position in the wine world. He believes the 2009 vintage will be the real test in the United Kingdom, and the next year will reveal where the country is headed in terms of the wine trade. “I also believe the UK has a chance to be, for the first time ever, the en primeur merchant of the world. That’s going to be based around the storage and provenance that we can offer. Provenance is going to be hugely important.”

In Hong Kong, attention to provenance is particularly crucial as the auction market expands. “The important thing is that chateaux are also beginning to take it seriously,” says Berry. Putting its money where its mouth is, Berry’s is equipping its shipments of wine with sensors to track their condition. It’s this attention to detail, a high level of service and a penchant for forward thinking despite its antique origins that the firm believes sets it apart.

Moreover, Berry Bros & Rudd boasts an extraordinary number of Master of Wines (MoWs) – five – on its team. While acknowledging that MoWs tend to bring to the table an academic approach, Berry says what’s interesting is the diversity of experience of its experts, from Jasper Morris’ focus on Pinot Noir to the all-round Welshman Alun Griffiths and educator Mark Pardoe. “Put them in a room together and they disagree with each other.”

The company believes that 50 percent of its business will come from Asia in the next 10 years. This might seem like an age in business terms, but Berry says that as a family firm it can take the long view. And it’s not pinning its hopes on Hong Kong alone, as Japan, Korea and Taiwan will also be important markets, says Berry.

What led the firm to Hong Kong was its shop in Heathrow airport. “We realised there were many people flying through Heathrow and buying wine to take back to Hong Kong. We discovered to our surprise that our brand seemed to mean something to people here.” Its point of contact in Hong Kong became the late Peter Lee of Hysan Development, which is why the company has its shop in Lee Gardens.

While Berry Bros & Rudd prides itself on dealing in some of the most expensive wines in the world, the company’s leader says price is not everything. “Don’t always spend on wine that’s flash,” says Berry. “Occasionally buy something that’s a quarter of the price but interesting. If you believe that just because you can afford the best you have to drink the best, you’re cutting yourself off from a whole world of interesting wines.”