Martin Constable reflects on the challenges of setting up his Oxfordshire wine business after selling his IT company

From IT to fine wines: A Chipping Norton entrepreneur encourages us to expand our drinking palates.

When I sold my IT business two years ago I wondered how I would be able to fill my time in retirement. Being decades away from the ‘slippers and soup’ syndrome I was keen to keep my mind and body active.

As a keen chef and self-confessed foodie I decided that I wanted to pursue a business in the food and drink sector so began thinking about what could be sold from a unit I owned nearby.

Having lived in Warwickshire and Gloucestershire before moving to Chipping Norton in 2014, I discovering what competition existed in and around my market town and further afield in Oxfordshire, took a leap of faith and developed the idea of becoming an online wine merchant, and from here Norton Wines was born.

However, it was by trial and error and some real low points before the business grew legs. Fort example, after establishing the brand, I began attending various wine fairs across the country to spread the word of my business but in hindsight realised my mistake pretty much straight away.

Having spent thousands on stands and tasting samples, all three fairs I attended in late 2014 resulted in little or no sales - this was a particularly low point for me. It was an expensive lesson and at the time I did think about throwing in the towel and retreating to somewhere warm where the grapes matured in the sunshine - but I knew deep down I would regret leaving behind the brand I had created.

After some soul searching I used some of my entrepreneurial resilience to channel my energy into developing the company ethos – offering good, everyday wines, not available in supermarkets, which are affordable and importantly, good value for money.

As a nation, although our knowledge of wine has greatly improved, we tend to be quite conservative and stick to what we know best, rarely deviating from our choice. This wine choice comfort blanket was - and still is - something I am keen to address and overcome and is therefore one of my main business challenges – to encourage people to experiment and try different wines.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to sell wine is to let customers taste and allow them to make informed choices, so one of the issues I have had to tackle is just how to do this. After weeks of thought I came up with the idea of offering tasting packs – five small bottles of selected wines. It’s a good way for people to try a range of wines without a spending a fortune and since introducing them in June they’ve been a real success.

Following customer feedback, the idea has now developed further with Wine Explorers launching next year - an idea that offers people that chance to buy into a theme, such as European reds or Italian whites, in the hope they will further expand their knowledge and even host their own wine parties.

Looking ahead Norton Wines will continue to educate and develop the customers’ wine palates so that they can better enjoy their wine in general and try to discourage them from treating wine as just another commodity for the weekly shop in the supermarket - something which has sadly become the norm.

At the moment I have sourced all my wines from UK importers but as the business grows I will be introducing more wines from across Europe and sourcing direct from small European producers. And this will be when the real fun starts as I intend to take seriously the quite onerous task of driving through Mediterranean Europe sampling wines and bringing them back to the UK!

For more details please see nortonwines.co.uk