FOR SLTN’s latest wine column with Inverarity Morton, we attended the supplier’s Explore. Taste. Love. wine show in Edinburgh and spoke to two of the company’s valued wine suppliers: Les Vignobles Foncalieu and 10 International.
Explore. Taste. Love. is held at Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms every March and gives customers the chance to sample some of the latest wines from Inverarity Morton’s portfolio as well as speak to suppliers. This year the event welcomed 74 suppliers and over 500 wines, with nearly 700 trade customers in attendance.
Tell us a little about your company.
Ann Calas, Les Vignobles Foncalieu: “We are a group of 619 growers, spread between Béziers and Carcassonne, so we’re lucky because we can benefit from both climates and so we can play with our wine profile a lot.
“Sustainability is at the heart of what we do. We are 100% vegan as well. The entire chain is vegan.
“We are known for our expertise in rosé and white, because we work a lot on freshness and the balance of the fruit aromas and freshness of the wine, which is very important to us.
“We are specialists as well of unusual grape varieties. So Piquepoul Noir, French Albarino. Unusual things like that.”
Why is Inverarity Morton a good company to work with?
“We’ve been working with Inverarity for many years. And I think we are very similar in the way we work. We work in full transparency – we say what we do and we do what we say – which seems to be common sense, but not everyone does it. I think this is why the relationship is working well, because there’s a lot of trust.
“I always very much look forward to today’s show because the organisation of the event is spot-on. It’s very professional.
“I see familiar faces year on year, so you can see that their customers are loyal as well. And I think that loyalty is across the entire chain, from the producer to the end customers, which is nice to see.”
Tell us a little about your company’s approach to wine.
Ian Hanley, 10 International/Sea Change: “10 International was established in 2006 and there’s about 14 people in the company.
“We’re 99% on-trade in the UK, but we do 20+ international markets as well. When 10 International was founded, there wasn’t that same focus on marketing within wine that there was in other categories. So Ten was all about creating eye-catching labels that had a bit more of a brand story.”
What is the Sea Change range of wines and how was it created?
“We happened to be at ProWein with some of our customers, and they were talking about the plastic that was washing up on the coast of Canada.
“We started thinking, there’s clearly something here. And we started investigating charities and we found one called Ocean Generation, which was founded by a lady called Jo Ruxton, who had worked with David Attenborough on Blue Planet and produced the film A Plastic Ocean.
“She started Ocean Generation to educate people about the plastic problem. She was such an impactful lady we thought we would do a couple of wines to support her charity.
“The range is constantly changing, but it’s around 18. And the idea is that every bottle features an animal that has been impacted by pollution or plastic or things like that. Every animal currently represents a specific region. So the dolphin wines are Southern Italian, we have a range of whale wines which are from the Languedoc in France.
“We’ve now contributed €700,000 to ocean conservation charities. It’s a lovely project to work on.”
To find out more about how the Inverarity Morton team can work with you on your wine range visit inveraritymorton.com or email sales@inveraritymorton.com
