BLOG – March 31st

Whilst our new website is being developed, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about ourselves and our business. Tivoli Wines was established in 2010 by Kai and Caroline Horstmann who, after 6 years building the business up from the ground and attracting a loyal customer base along the way, decided to relocate to Devon and sell the business to the us – Dave and Helen Dodd – in December 2016.

This is our first business venture, having spent the last 15+ years working for major retailers across the globe in areas of marketing, finance, format development and retail strategy. We both love the fast-paced, and occasionally scary, nature of retail so decided to set up our own business –  we quickly embarked upon the WSET route to wine enlightenment and ended up making an offer for Tivoli Wines. Now the fun really begins……….

So what’s in store for Tivoli Wines? What’s our USP? Will we specialise in French, Italian, New World, Organic Wine, Biodynamic Wine, will we run wine tasting events for the Cheltenham public, offer official WSET courses or set up an area for sample wine on-site? We’ve been asked these questions many times over the past few months so it’s about time we provided some answers.

I suppose the many years of listening to the corporate boll*cks from big retailers must have had an impact – as we have created corporate VALUES of our own for Tivoli Wines. Our core values focus around three customer-related principles. We want to ensure that all the wines on our shelves are of sufficient QUALITY, and have put in place processes so that all team members taste (and vote) on each new wine coming into the shop. We will also be setting up customer tasting panels to ensure that we don’t get caught up in the hype of new wines and obtain feedback on what our customers really want and what they’re willing to pay (feel free to contact us if you’d like to get involved in this).

Our second principle is VALUE, which doesn’t necessarily mean we offer wine at ‘Supermarket Prices’. To us, VALUE means that the customer is getting the best quality wine for a price they’re willing to pay. Everybody wants to ensure that they’ve got good deal, whether it’s at the £6.99 entry-level for a South African Chenin or with a 2005 Chateau Lynch Bages for well in excess of £100. We want to ensure that we have the best quality Italian red for under £10, the best quality Bordeaux for under £20 or that we can offer Veuve Clicquot champagne at a price below what the supermarkets charge (I was quite proud of this, hence our numerous tweets on the matter!). The team are constantly searching for deals so we can get top quality juice in front of you at the cheapest possible price.

Our final company value is, to me, our most important. It’s EDUCATION, and this is an area which we intend to invest significantly. We find the world of wine fascinating and we want to share our knowledge without bombarding customers with confusing terminology or extensive tasting notes which are aimed at wine critics and connoisseurs rather than “Joe Public”. We firmly believe that the language around wine needs to shift away from the traditional note form, and become more engaging to today’s time-poor, tech-savvy consumer groups. We’re working on a plan to change our style of communication to our customers – and you should start to see subtle changes in the shop over the next few months!

Finally, we believe that there’s no better way to educate customers than letting them sample wines which is why we’ve introduced our #FreeTastingWeekends whereby we put upto 5 wines on taste (for free) every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Everyone knows someone who only drinks one style of wine – a NZ Sauvignon Blanc being a favourite – so our aim is to get more people exploring and discovering new wines. I recently had a friend tell me that she doesn’t drink white wine as she hasn’t found a white wine she likes in 18 years of searching. It took us just 15 minutes to find one for her (it was a Gewurztraminer….randomly!). This isn’t a sales pitch either, we encourage customers to sample the wines in peace and quiet in the shop, we won’t harass you unless you ask for more details, and we encourage honest feedback – if you don’t like them, then tell us.

So I hope that gives you a flavour of what’s to come at Tivoli Wines……we have BIG plans for the next 12 months. A new website, to be launched in June alongside our new Wine Club, we intend to change our brand and our in-store communication to make it easier to explore and discover new wines, we’re ramping up our Wine Events from May, either for a more formal, educational session or just for a bit of fun……and then we should be making a major announcement soon regarding our upper floor. Very, very exciting times are ahead.

Dave