Ditton Wine Traders are fast growing fine wine merchants, specializing in Bordeaux.
“Ditton Wine Traders have been quietly trading since 2004 and have established an excellent reputation within the trade. Always well priced and often able to source highly sought after wines in good volume, they do business with the majority of the UK’s Fine Wine Merchants. Ditton Wine Traders, like most other successful UK Wine Traders, also have a large customer base in Hong Kong and China. Turning over just shy of £10m last year, they are middle sized and financially sound Fine Wine Merchants. The wines that Ditton lists are mostly made up of the big Bordeaux names and increasingly wines from Italy and Burgundy as well as good value drinking wines from Bordeaux.
Making fine wine accessible
Asked for the reason behind the success, Mark Schuringa, MD of Ditton Wine Traders said “It’s really best captured in our motto: making fine wine accessible. We passionately believe in offering fair prices and sound advice. We have a very honest approach, almost to the point where we appear to be commercially naïve. Yes, we could probably ask higher prices but we don’t believe in maximizing short term profits. Instead, we believe in treating customers as well as we can and we always operate with the utmost integrity. That, I believe, is the only sustainable way to build a business and it’s certainly the only way that I want to do business. And it would seem that our customers agree”.
En primeur 2010
So how does this approach impact on the Bordeaux 2010 En Primeur campaign? Ditton Wine Traders are growing quickly and as such, allocations from Bordeaux grow as well. Even though overall there will be less available from the chateaux this year. Schuringa comments “We are primarily wholesalers – dealing with the majority of the UK wine trade. As such, we don’t have a database of thousands of private customers. Therefore, we might well be able to offer private customers an allocation of the sought after wines – an allocation that you can then keep throughout the years. A fantastic opportunity that you won’t easily find with other fine wine traders”. If this appeals, request your allocation.
Private cellars
Ditton Wine Traders have an extensive, international sourcing network. Always on the hunt for prime Bordeaux stock, they are very keen to acquire stock from private collectors. Mark Schuringa explains “sourcing is key to our success. Demand for the icon wines handsomely outstrips supply so we try and be very competitive in the prices we quote to purchase pristine stock. We relish the opportunity to out-bid other potential buyers, so we always ask customers that wish to sell their wines to come back to us with any quotes they might have received. Again, it’s common business sense combined with a desire to do well for our clients”.
Advice
Ditton Wine Traders are still small enough to provide a very personal service. It’s a small, clued in team. They try and provide useful information on their blog, which comments on developments in the fine wine market and often gives tips on how to go about investing in fine wine. Buying and selling wine every day, Ditton has insightful information – which they love to share – about which wines are moving, which wines have already moved and which wines have just started to (obviously the category you want to be involved in). It’s a bit like talking to the market makers on the stock exchange, rather than your local investment adviser. Makes sense to us!
Ditton Wine Traders’ fine wine blog
Written by Matt Chappell
