“Burgundy for kings, champagne for duchesses, claret for gentlemen.”

Our Principles

What makes us different to other wine companies? Our values and the way we work mean that Thierry’s is a special place to work and hopefully a unique company to do business with.

Our green journey

Working with natural ingredients means we’re all too aware of the impact of the environment on our wines, but what are we doing to minimise our impact on the environment? We’re by no means perfect, but we’re on a journey, taking small steps and making steady progress to become a greener business.

Travel

For us to really build strong relationships with our producers and to understand the challenges facing for example, grenache growers in the Rhone, we believe face to face meetings are an inevitable part of our industry. We appreciate that with today’s technology, people might question the need to fly around the world. This is a tough call, and not one that we take lightly. Of course we don’t just hop on a plane at the drop of a hat. Rather we’ll undertake much of our initital and ongoing business by phone and online and only once the need for a meeting is identified and agreed, it is organised. Wherever possible we tie in visits with a number of producers to make the most of the travel time.

Packaging

We listen to our customers to understand what they want. Our approach is to strike a happy balance between customer needs and environmental impact. Obviously one of the fun aspects of being a wine company is that we have a fair amount of wine in the office for tastings. We make sure that all of our glass bottles are recycled after every tasting and that all cartons and boxes that we receive wine in are re-used for sending out wine samples – they may not look immaculate, but we think saving trees is more important!

Our home: Horsefair House

We take small steps towards a greener life in our Romsey home. From recycling printer cartridges and milk bottles to our chef, Anita using locally sourced produce in our lunches. We have lots of fruit and vegetable growers in the team and there’s regularly swapping of produce going on in the kitchen to make sure nothing goes to waste! (There’s often a lot of cake in the kitchen too – although that isn’t anything to do with the environment!).

Our Ethics

Of course the grapes in our wines are grown all over the world and through our partner wineries, we work with hundreds of different vineyards of all types and sizes – from small family vineyards to exclusive private estates and large co-operative groups. This means that there is definitely no ‘one size fits all’ solution to responsible buying, so this is the approach that we tend to take:  

• We learn as much as we can about our grapes - how they are grown, the challenges for our producers, and how we can work with them to help in the process.
• We have our own set of minimum standards for our producers, covering relevant environment and social issues.
• We have established relationships with, and we’re actively growing our portfolio of Fairtrade producers and growers.

We expect our producers to empathise with our principles and to work to fair, minimum standards; they are a part of our journey too and we look out for producers who are committed to making continuous improvements.

Fairtrade

Recognition of the Fairtrade mark amongst UK consumers is growing rapidly and with wine being the fastest growing Fairtrade product category, we know that UK consumers have a huge appetite for supporting the growers in countries such as Chile, Argentina and South Africa. Here at Thierry’s we have big aspirations for our Fairtrade producers, and we work closely with them to build the number, range and awareness of quality Fairtrade wines in the UK.

At the heart of our passion for Fairtrade is the ability to give something back to the communities where our wines are produced. A recent and very exciting new addition to our Fairtrade portfolio is the new Cantora brand produced in the Curico region of Chile. This brand new range including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Pinot Noir, Carmenere, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc will help to raise much-needed funding for a number of community projects in Curico. The community has been integral to the creation of the brand, with the wine bottle label being designed in collaboration with one of the local schools there. In turn, sales from the brand will help to support community projects such as a mobile dental service and a bicycle repair & maintenance facility for the growers, their families and the community.

Read more about Bosman, one of our Fairtrade producers in South Africa here. 

Charities and community

We pride ourselves on being a good neighbour in our Hampshire community, whether it is raising money for Comic Relief or supporting local events and shows.

Every year we support a number of charities, both close to home and further afield within the countries where our wines come from. Some of the charities that we have supported recently include:

• The Pebbles Project, South Africa http://www.pebblesproject.co.za/
• The Backup Trust
• Southampton General Hospital’s Red & White Appeal

Education

We are passionate about the development of our people and their skills whether they lie in wine, professional studies or learning a foreign language and this passion extends more broadly to the wine industry as well. As a lasting legacy to our great friend and founder; Thierry, and in partnership with the WSET, the Thierry Cabanne Scholarship Award was created to enable one outstanding WSET student each year the opportunity for a month’s work experience within the Thierry’s business. This offers WSET students who are passionate about wine but not working within the industry, an invaluable insight into the world of wine. It also enables our team to learn from these individual’s fresh perspectives.