Congratulations to Dylanwad Wine (Gwynedd), Lea & Sandeman (London), The Dorset Wine Company (Poundbury), The Solent Cellar (Lymington) and The Wine Society (Stevenage).
The Sherry Festival ran from Monday 5 - Sunday 18 June. All participating wine merchants received a free POS pack, containing posters, bunting and chalkboards to use for their in-store displays, along with t-shirts and aprons for the staff to wear and consumer goodies as giveaways.
All participating merchants, who ranged from Swansea to Suffolk and Birmingham to Brighton, decided what activities they thought would best suit their customers and their resources.
Duncan Murray Wines held a sherry tasting and tapas evening & their new pop-up wine bar sold sherry by the glass, with an overall 200% increase in sales from the previous month. Portland Wines noticed more young people trying a range of styles and received amazing feedback. Yorkshire Vintners joined forces with a local restaurant who co-hosted a food and sherry pairing dinner, and at The Wine Shop customers enjoyed the opportunity to taste some new and different styles of sherry's, who were pleasantly surprised enough to make the most of the promotion offer.
All activities were self-funding, either through ticket sales or uplift in sales - with Sherry Wines UK offering organisational support and resources in addition to promotional items.
What the winners said
Dylanwad Wines - Dylan Rowland said, “We sold more Sherry in this period than they would normally sell during a year, a great success for us in our small rural town. I also carried out a tutored tasting on sherry on the Welsh TV programme Prynhawn Da, which was viewed via our Facebook page.”
Lea & Sandeman - Lucy Marcuson commented, “Our staff saw an increase in sales of 38.4% versus the same period in 2016. It raised awareness of sherry and gave us an opportunity to shout about it, especially as it coincided with Valdespino’s manzanilla en Rama release.”
The Dorset Wine Company - Jonathan Charles said, “We set-up a dedicated area of the shop for ‘free pour tastings’ and decorated it using the bunting and leaflets. We opened every style of sherry and had them available to taste throughout the festival, which increased our Sherry range from 17 to 24 lines. This created a definite uplift in Sherry sales during the period, 14% up compared to normal, and sales on the Sherry and Tapas Tutored tasting night were also very good.”
The Solent Cellar - Heather Smith said, “Our main event was a Tapas and Sherry night in our courtyard garden. This was in collaboration with Patas Arriba a local pop-up tapas company who offered up some Andalusian delights whilst matching these to different styles of sherry. We saw a significant increase in online sales of sherry wines during this time.”
The Wine Society - Laura Vickers-Green commented, “The POS items were used to set-up a helpful in-store display to promote to our Members, we wrote a blog detailing some delicious recipes with Sherry as the key ingredient and held a social media competition to giveaway for a bottle of Tio Pepe Fino, which is our most popular brand.”
To see a full list of this year's Sherry Festival participants on the Sherry Map of the UK click here.
A summary report from the winners trip detailing the bodeags they visited in Jerez, will be published soon.
