Wine producers from around the globe travelled to Edinburgh last month for Inverarity Morton’s Explore Taste Love wine show.
The show, which welcomed 64 suppliers and showcased more than 450 different wines, took place at The Assembly Rooms on George Street and was attended by around 600 guests from across the licensed trade.
Speaking to SLTN at the event Inverarity Morton’s wine buyer, Guy Chatfield, said the aim of the show ‘has always been to show that our portfolio is expanding, and to show that we are, A, listening to the market and, B, challenging it a wee bit’.
“This day is so phenomenally fun, and the idea is really to keep it fun,” he said. “We’ve definitely evolved over time. The 17 or so years I’ve been involved – as a supplier and then as an employee – it’s definitely evolved for the better. The back of house is really super-slick. Our suppliers – the effort they make to come and see us is phenomenal.
“But it’s just that interaction. You get so many connections with people saying ‘we stock your wines, we love your wines’ and that is so gratifying.
“And it’s also really interesting when you get people saying ‘these are phenomenal, what’s the story?’ And it’s that ability to tell the story, from vineyard right through to the people that are selling it.”
Describing the collection of wines at the show as ‘a great representation of our portfolio’, Chatfield said the company continues to work hard to stay on top of changing trends and innovations in order to present customers with the best range of wines. These include wines from established old and new world producers as well as emerging markets.
“We sell a lot of Italian wine, we sell a lot of French wine, we sell a lot of Spanish wine. The ones I think are the most exciting in the last couple of years are the Uruguayans, the Greeks, and the Austrians,” said Chatfield.
“We’ve always been quite a traditional business, as William Morton and now Inverarity Morton. We’ve always been seen as a bit of a pub supplier.
“We are not just a pub supplier. We supply the trade. And we want to engage the trade with interesting wines that hit the right price point for them, that are fantastic, and that have an interesting story.”
Commercial director Ian Cumming pointed out that the company is also adapting to changes in the Duty rate for wine, which will make higher-strength wines more expensive.
“We’re looking at 10.5% wines, and there’s wines around 7%, 8% now as well, which are really good quality.
“So the Duty rate goes down and it allows people to put it on at a price point that’s good quality and affordable.”
Supplier partnerships were another big theme of the event, with Inverarity Morton celebrating some of its longest-serving suppliers as the company marks its 80th anniversary this year.
Several of these suppliers participated in a panel event called ‘Vineyard Voices’ during the show.
Cumming said: “This is the 80th anniversary of Inverarity Morton this year, so we’ve picked some suppliers that we’ve been dealing with (for a long time).
“For example, Botter are Italian suppliers. Sam Botter who’s here is the fourth-generation of that family that we’ve now dealt with. We’ve been dealing with them for over 40 years.
“And we’ve got Javier from Chile who we’ve been dealing with for 25 years. So it’s celebrating that relationship side of it, and the strength of those relationships.”
Botter told SLTN that the company, which was founded by his great-grandfather in 1928 and now exports to countries all over the world, has ‘grown together with Inverarity’.
“It’s really about these long-standing partnerships and together understanding what the consumer is looking for at which price points,” he said.
“And then it’s really about integrity, good business practices, loyalty and that’s how you form a very successful partnership.
“Inverarity is now one of our most important customers.”
Each year Explore Taste Love encourages attendees to rate their favourite wines at the show, with each supplier table including an easy-to-use QR code.
The winning wines this year were a trockenbeerenauslese from Austrian winery Höpler and a pinotage from De Waal in South Africa.
Cumming said the results showed that customers are ‘widening their horizons’.
