How The Good Wine Shop Pairs Authentic Wines with Genuine Stories

Good Wine | Real People | Great Stories

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This is a brand message - The Good Wine Shop’s to be exact.

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This week, we sat down with Mark Wrigglesworth, Director of The Good Wine Shop, to learn more about the story behind the brand. 

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Mark shared how this message perfectly reflects the wines they stock—unique wines, made by real people who are passionate about what they do. 

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It’s a guiding principle that shapes their entire marketing strategy, allowing them to communicate with authenticity across all channels and stay true to their brand’s DNA.

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Let’s get into the interview!
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What inspired you to start The Good Wine Shop, and what drew you to spotlight small, family-owned producers?
I developed a passion for wine in my thirties and had set up and run a small business in another sector in my early career. An opportunity arose to take over a small existing wine shop in my local neighbourhood and I took a leap of faith in being able to learn retail and the wine business fast. The decision to focus on small, artisan and family owned producers came to me fairly early when it became apparent they produced the most interesting wines with passion and amazing back stories. It also made commercial sense, offering wines which aren’t widely available or found in the regular high street gave us a niche which I developed.

How do you decide what wines make the cut?
Our buying team are always looking for the latest new producers who are off the radar in well known or up and coming countries or regions. Finding those who are pushing the boundaries or perhaps reviving old indigenous grapes, but ultimately making great wines is what we are after. Often we find we list a new producer for a few years and then some of the big boys come knocking and want to list them, at this time we tend to delist and then move on to the next new kids on the block. It’s a constant challenge but one that means our customers know they are always going to be first to know about the great new producers and their wines before anyone else.  

What makes for an excellent customer experience?
In a nutshell, hire dedicated and professional people who are passionate about wine and want to deliver great wine experiences. I am lucky to have had a number of people who have been with me for a good number of years and set the bar high in terms of the standards they set, leading by example in everything they do. We offer an extensive range of ticketed wine tasting events across our stores as well as bespoke corporate events too. The level of demand for tickets for our inshore events is a clear demonstration of the great customer experiences our teams in store deliver. 

Location, location, location—How much of a big deal is it?
Quite significantly actually. Our stores are all located around the river Thames in south west London which is an affluent and leafy suburb of London where there is high disposable income and a lot of people with a passion for food and wine. There is also passion and support for independent businesses who offer unique products and high levels of service. We strive to achieve and deliver on both these things. 

How has technology impacted your business operations, especially in adapting to challenges like the pandemic and the rise of social media?
Technology has played an increasing part of the business and this was an opportunity we recognised back in 2018-19 and made some significant investments in re-platforming our website and dedicating roles internally to growing our digital revenues and presence. This paid off when the pandemic hit as we were in a good place to ride the wave of increased demand while our shops were closed. The web operations propped the business up during that time and we view digital as the major growth opportunity for  the business in the next 5 years. 

Future plans?
We are very excited about a new project that is about to be launched this Autumn. We have been working with Rainy City to develop a parallel website brand called Simply Good Wine which targets a different segment of the DTC UK wine market. The brand will carry a completely different range of wines from the niche offering at TGWS. The wines will be a little more mainstream and high profile, but still majoring on a high quality but more recognisable to the wine drinking public, however they will still be focussed on the middle of the market in the £15-£25 bracket, rather than fishing at the bottom of the pond with the supermarkets. The new site will give us a high degree of freedom to try new things in terms of marketing and sales strategies that we are not able to do with TGWS site as it needs to reflect the ethos, range and values of our shops.

Favourite part about running The Good Wine Shop, and do you have a personal favourite wine?What I love is being able to explore new initiatives and business opportunities to see if your instincts are correct. The joy of managing to make a consistent profit that provides you the ability to experiment and explore is how the business has grown to where it is today. I hope that continues and we are able to push new boundaries and take some risks. In addition to that, having a team of passionate and driven people around you who want to come on that journey too makes it all the more exciting and rewarding, particularly when you see them grow and develop as a result of their own hard work and the opportunities you have been able to give them. My favourite wine is a constantly moving target with so many new and amazing wines to taste, however if I had to pick then it would be top white burgundy (chardonnay) such as Puligny Montrachet from an iconic producer like Etienne Sauzet or Meursault from the lesser known Francois Mikulski.