From what began on the kitchen table in 1980, County-Durham based Lanchester Wines is now a leading wine importer and wholesaler providing an impressive range of award-winning wines to the UK retail and hospitality industry. It is a company that is fiercely proud of its northern heritage and its founders, Tony and Veronica Cleary, are still very much at the helm of the family-owned independent business with sustainability very much its beating heart. Shirley Kumar travelled to Durham to find out how these premium quality wines are finding their way into independent retailers, restaurant, bar and pub wine lists.
Visit Lanchester Wines and Full Circle Brewery at the Northern Restaurant and Bar Show (NRB)
March 11-12 Manchester Central on Stand NE71
THE “north is our heritage,” says Lanchester Wines’ founder and CEO, Tony Cleary. “We are immensely proud of that. We aim to be the greenest wine company in the world, and we are doing it from County Durham.”
Lanchester Wines offers around 3,000 sku’s to the UK’s on-and off-trade channels. It’s multi-faceted operation ensures it can offer specialist wines shipped in bulk to pub groups and wholesalers (Boutique Bulk) and high-end agency wines to independent retailers and restaurants (Vintrigue).
Lanchester Wines will be hosting the DON’T BURST YOUR BUBBLES seminar at NRB.
Date: Mar 12 2025
Time: 2:00 pm – 2:30 pm
Theatre: Pub & Bar Theatre
It is part of the Lanchester Group, a collection of separate businesses owned by the Cleary family, including what it claims is Europe’s biggest state-of-the-art wine bottling facility, BRC AA+ Greencroft Bottling. The Group owns and operates over 1million square foot of Class A bonded warehouse, a successful gifting company, Full Circle Brew Co (the makers of award-winning American pale ale Looper), a spirit company, property and even an energy business! The latter oversees the Group’s renewable energy and heat generation through solar power, wind turbines and geothermal heat pumps.
“We made it to five years!” Full Circle Brew Co. founder on how he found his craft beer passion
Sustainability is not a ‘desire’ but a ‘must have’ now for many wine buyers. Consumers are demanding it because of environmental concerns and then there are legislative pressures pushing the agenda along.
“Nobody can touch us on sustainability,” says Tony. “They can’t come close.”
He wants the business to become a 100% sustainable, carbon-free business as it can. Just looking around the group’s headquarters, it is impressive. Three gigantic wind turbines tower over the mini business park just outside of Durham, home to Lanchester Wines and Greencroft Bottling.
The turbines, along with solar and geothermal heat pumps are part of a £13m investment in renewable energy initiatives. They enable the company to operate predominantly on renewable energy with each building thematically efficient.
The investment ensured the family-owned firm won the International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) 2024 Green Wine Initiative Trophy for the second year running.
And Tony has not finished yet; Now Greencroft Two (the new home for Greencroft Bottling, opened in 2024), is up and running, Tony’s looking to regenerate existing warehousing to make it even more efficient.
Biggest employers
The group turns over £143m and is one of the largest employers in County Durham with over 550 staff. The majority can walk to work and are embraced into the bosom of the family.
Cleary provided cost of living packages to all staff and has been known to pick up staff to get them to work when blighted by snow. They even have their own snow plough!
“Our team are part of the family,” says Cleary, and he doesn’t mean that in a ‘Godfather’ style way. Daughter Caroline Cleary is a director and poised to take over when Tony and Veronica eventually hang up their caps to retire.
Different strands different strokes
The UK is a vast importer of bulk wine – transporting wine as a bulk liquid rather than in bottle, which can save around 38% carbon. Some 40% of all global bulk wine is shipped to the UK. Starting life on the kitchen table in 1980, the Lanchester Wines business model was all about importing bulk.
Today, around 50% of its business still trades in bulk, the other 50% is as a brand builder and agency, importing high end and boutique wines.
This means it can create its own brand portfolio, be it developing brands from scratch or acting as an agency for wine producers around the world; it develops exclusive and own-label brands for customers in both the on and off-trade and it does contract work for third parties.
Lanchester Wine’s position as original importer and agency means it can supply boutique premium wines to pub companies and wholesalers and offer smaller parcels from family-owned wineries with provenance to wine merchants and restaurants.
“Flexibility and consistency are key,” says Lanchester Wines director of sales Mark Roberts. “We are seeing more demand for both quality and consistency. It is all about bringing the most relevant wine to market.
“Consistency has surprisingly been a big issue for the on-trade as suppliers struggle to source and deliver wines due to fluctuating harvests and shipping delays, the latter affected by geo-political influences such as the conflict in the Middle East.
“There’s presently a 52% success rate on shipping, globally,” says Roberts. “We pride ourselves on holding healthy stock. Tony is very big on that. If we are privileged enough to supply a customer in the north, we want to make sure we can actually supply them.”
Roberts highlighted an ongoing trend where wine lists haven’t included a vintage or mention a brand name because of issues around availability.
“We have a different way to spec our portfolio,” says Roberts. “Our sales teams are massively involved in curating the wine lists under the watchful eye of Lesley Cook, Lanchester Wines director of purchasing. It is sacrosanct for the team to feel confident tasting any wines on the list.
“We also have brand ambassadors who work with each salesperson, they work closely with our suppliers and effect positive change.
“It’s about having an on-trend relevant portfolio and being entrepreneurial with it.”
Lanchester Wines also has a ‘customer first’ approach: “We always tell our customers about any news first.”
Its ethos is to build long-term, sustainable partnerships with wine producers, even where there are sourcing challenges: “We honour our contracts completely, which, in turn, allows us to source wine with confidence and can share our expertise with our customers and give their consumers a new wine experience” says Roberts.
Another area that Lanchester Wines supports its customers is its ability to source sustainable handpicked wines from family-owned vineyards, suitable for the independent retailer and restaurateur.
Vintrigue
Its Vintrigue agency does just that. Its enhanced portfolio offers lower minimum order with wines that not only have provenance but a story behind them. It is a prerequisite that the wine producers align with the group’s own sustainability credentials because “being carbon neutral is just the beginning.”
The Vintrigue portfolio boosts an impressive range; It’s Californian partner is the renowned Don Sebastiani and Sons, with brands such Leese-Fitch and The Path.
Other feathers in the portfolio cap include Chile’s Ventopuro and Italy’s Tombacco and wines from Vallegre, one of the leading producers in Portugal’s Douro region. Closer to home, it partners with London-based winery London Cru.
Within its portfolio are market-trending wines, such as an orange wine, Origine Bianco, from Siciliy. This quirky wine is matured for two years six months with some oxidative qualities.
There is also 47 Anno Domini Le Argille ‘Cabernet di Cabernet’, an Italian 50/50 blend of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon fermented entirely in concrete with no oak interaction, and then presented in a cement covered bottle.
Australian brands include the playful ‘Don’t Tell Gary’ Shiraz. Seriously, don’t tell Gary, he is an accountant and wouldn’t want the exceptional parcel of Shiraz to be stored in “ridiculously expensive” French barrels to age for 12 months. The Gold award-winning wine is part of McPherson Wines portfolio from Victoria.
Other Australian ranges include Omrah and Permission to Pivot, both from Western Australia. McGuigan offers four no-alcohol wines from a Chardonnay to Shiraz.
Family-owned Champagne House
Lanchester Wines’ exclusive partnership with family-owned Champagne producer Famille Moutard is a major success story.
“We sold more Champagne this year than I ever did in 45 years,” Cleary muses. “We are lucky to find a family-owned Champagne house,” adds Roberts. “The majority of Champagne houses are owned by co-ops or big corporations or are small scale ‘grower’ Champagnes.
“With Champagne being one of the most iconic categories in wine, we have fostered a long-term family feel partnership so that it is mutually beneficial.”
Famille Moutard produces a distinctive range of top end Champagnes from its base in Buxeuil on the slopes of the Côte des Bar. Its signature Grande Cuvée Brut is available in a range of sizes from half bottle to Jeroboam and includes Rose Cuvaison (recently awarded 89 points) and Champagne Persin Blanc de Blancs.
Lanchester Wines’ customers also have access to Champagne Moutard’s signature, artisan Cuvée Six Cépages Brut Nature 2012 is created using six of the eight permissible Champagne grape varieties, three of them close to extinction – Arbane, Petie Meslier and Pinot Blanc.
It is also the only Champagne house to create a limited production Vieilles Vignes Arbane 2014. In 1952, Lucien Moutard planted 10 acres of Arbane and today, his son François and grandson Benoît Moutard produce the only old vine Arbane Champagne in the world.
Clearly an innovator, Famille Moutard has a pair of crown-capped Pet Nats (Pétillant-Naturel) produced using the ancestral method – a traditional way of making sparkling wine.
Made with fruit from the family’s estates in Burgundy; Pet’ Mout’ Pet Nat, from Chardonnay, and Pet’ Mout’ Pet Nat Rosé, from Pinot Noir, are branded with a funky-looking farting sheep. Yes, that’s right. péter is French for fart, while ‘mouton’ is a sheep and also a play on the family name, Moutard.
These natural wines have gained in popularity as an artisanal alternative to sparkling wine. Fine dining restaurants, especially around the northwest including Cumbria, appear to have a penchant for low intervention and natural wines.
Via the wider Lanchester Group, customers can also gain access to the gifting business, Spicers of Hythe, and can order from its sister Newcastle-based craft brewery, Full Circle Brew Co, owned by Tony’s son, Ben.
Boutique Bulk
Bulk wine, with its impressive green credentials, is having a moment. It has gone upmarket and is no longer the poor cousin to wines bottled in the country of origin.
More premium wine producers are switching to bulk and in turn are increasing the availability of organic expressions, bio-dynamic and fresher wines from sustainable family-owned vineyards.
Shipping wine in bulk and bottling in the UK is nothing new; for centuries the Liverpool, Bristol and London docks were frequented with ships bringing clarets from Bordeaux, France, and including even Château d’Yquem 1888, from the Sauternes district.
The UK sources much of its wine from the New World – Australia, Chile, South Africa, the United States and New Zealand – where long distances translate to cost savings – both financially and environmentally.
“Shipping wine in bulk is simpler, it’s more efficient, it’s better for the planet and there are no longer any quality issues to worry about,” says Cleary, an expert as Lanchester Wines has been shipping wine in 24,000-26,000 litre flexitanks and ISO tanks for decades.
Market demands for quality and cost efficiency nurtured the birth of Boutique Bulk. It sources premium and specialist wines, produced from smaller volume and eclectic parcels from single vineyards. The range is targeted at group operators, wholesalers and larger independents. It offers a minimum bottle run of 8,000 litres with bottles, cans, bag-in-box and wines on tap available.
“Boutique bulk is all about bringing in things that are not run of the mill,” says Roberts. This means working with existing wine partners and finding new ones from a single vineyard like our High Side Malbec made from a high-altitude single vineyard, from Calingasta in Argentina.
It also allows the company to bring wines to the table from on-trend regions such as California in a cost-effective way.
“From one container of bulk wine we can now produce so many different formats for a wide range of customers. It could be a separate private label for a pub chain, or specialist retailer. Each can have their own point of difference, and be sold at a wide range of prices, all from the same shipment.”
Being able to lock in guarantees of supply at certain price points means it can then work with its on-trade customers to ensure wine list prices are kept to the minimum.
Lanchester Wines bottled in UK house range also offers classic varietals within its Water’s Edge range with Chardonnay and Shiraz from Australia, Pinot Grigio and Merlot from Moldova, Chilean Sauvignon Blanc, white Zinfandel from the USA. The Founder’s Stone range offers similar and, its Inspiral range is available in recycled PET plastic bottles for events that prohibit glass use. Similarly, its Wallflower range is available in single serve cans.
Sister Act
All of Lanchester Wine’s bulk wine is bottled at its sister business, Greencroft Bottling, which is also where many of the leading supermarkets and other wine importers chose to bottle their wines. The two businesses are operated completely separate to ensure commerciality.
The £21m, solar and wind power enabled Greencroft Two building is 240,000 sq. ft. – equivalent to four football pitches – and, when in full function, will more than double the potential capacity to up to 400million litres per year, and able to fill up to 90,000 bottles, tetra and bag-in-the-box, an hour.
It can accommodate up to 10 bottling lines from 75cl glass, 187ml single serve glass and PET and has seven ancillary lines for bag-in-box, one-litre Tetra Pak, cans, pouches, key kegs or any new types of sustainable packaging, allowing it to move ever closer to carbon-neutral formats.
“This sustainable, green production facility to handle and bottle the wines is particularly important in attracting on-trade operators to work with Lanchester Wines,” says Roberts.
Lanchester Wines was the first to offer a ground-breaking Verallia 300g bottle, which it did so in partnership with Aldi earlier this year, proving its dedication to reducing landfill waste and carbon emissions.
To summarise…
Yes, it is about having the right wine to send to the right customers at the right time. But it is also about building long-term relationships and partnerships with producers at one end and customers at the other. Lanchester Wines might have become bigger and bolder with age, but it has the same core family values that Tony Cleary started out with in 1980 that is really driving the business forward today.
Award-winning wines:
- Permission to Pivot LSD Riesling, Drinks Business Riesling – Master GOLD
- London Cru Chardonnay – 92 points Decanter
- Champagne Moutard Champ Persin Blanc de Blancs – 94 Points Decanter
- Ballancin Prosecco Superiore DOCG – 93 Points Decanter
- Vallegre Old Vines Reserva Especial Tinto – 95 Points Decanter
