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Profile: The wonder of Wanderlust

There’s obviously a clue in the name, which, as the website explains, means ‘a strong desire to travel’. With Wanderlust Wine, this translates as a mission to keep exploring the boundaries of wine, eschewing the obvious for somewhat more original, smaller-producer sourcing, all with a strong emphasis on sustainability. And the latter translates as going beyond simply listing organically and biodynamically farmed wines, to encompass an ethos of fair pay for producers, along with equal pricing for takers of the wines.

Of course, elements of the above have become much more commonplace today. But meeting Wanderlust founder Richard Ellison leaves you in little doubt of the passion behind the company, or the vision to keep its portfolio true to those guiding principles. And, given that this eight-year-old merchant has doubled its revenues every year since its inception, built on a roughly 70/30 split between on-trade and website sales, it clearly seems to be a formula for success.

Ellison himself turned to the wine world because of that passion, consolidating his own interest by diving into a Level 3 WSET course while still working at his old job. With a degree in food and wine technology, plus a stint as a chef, he’d nonetheless migrated from pot noodles and packaged pasta into the world of banking, earning reasonable bucks, but with a growing wine itch that he finally had to scratch. He then set up Wanderlust while still working in finance, which also helped shape the way the company still operates today.

• Read more: Soapbox – Calling time on sustainability inaction

First up, though, came an emphasis on working with the right producers, launching with just eight that somehow he persuaded to trust his ambition, promising sales into quality on-trade establishments, with the web presence also pulling in private customers. Ellison’s description of what works with regard to agencies is telling.

“The job a wine merchant has is akin to dating when you are a young person,” he says. “If you don’t get on like a house on fire, it’s not worth it.”

With Wanderlust’s portfolio having now grown to around 70 exclusive producers, Ellison explains that “it’s about building the distribution as the producers want, very much like the dating thing, discussing their outlook and where they want to get to and how we can do that for them”.

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Shifting priorities

A big part of that relates back to how the company was set up, with Ellison still having a day job, then consultancy, for the first couple of years. Through a mix of necessity and foresight he engaged tech to cover as much back-office work as possible, freeing both himself and subsequent employees to spend as much time as possible doing the important stuff.

“For me it was about trying to apply the basic idea of love of product with ease of modern application,” he says.

“We live in an Amazon world, right? So how on earth does the wine industry still deliver minimum orders, possibly one bottle, anywhere in the country, finding the stock and delivering, taking payment… it’s so convoluted, so building technology into all of these things just seemed to provide a way through.”

This, he adds, means the Wanderlust team can spend as much time as possible with clients; the all-important face-to-face contact so crucial to building trusting relationships. Ellison is also firm in his belief that the boundaries between buying and sales should be dissolved as much as possible, to ensure the passion for any given producer’s wines feed right through to the front line. All of which gives good insight into what makes Wanderlust tick, but what of the wines themselves?

Born of producers that Ellison had initially discovered on his travels, the portfolio now stretches from Argentina to Greece, South Africa to the USA, by way of the likes of Lebanon, Romania, the UK and Uruguay, folding in 19 countries in total. The States remain something of a focus, not least because of time he spent working in New York, sampling US wines, but the net is now spread wide.

Ellison cites old school, chewy, tannic Cahors as “a great approximation of what is not a Wanderlust wine”, saying that “what I want is expression in the glass and expression on the palate, not tradition”.

He explains: “And that’s because a lot of them are opened and poured in restaurants and they need to be approachable, enjoyable now.”

So how far can Wanderlust grow without losing its founding ethos? Ellison won’t be drawn on an exact figure, but says he doesn’t want to “get into that £20-50m bracket”, adding that alongside “smaller producers of amazing quality, you do need some agencies of slightly bigger scale” to keep customers satisfied.

“You have to bring those things together to keep the growth curve going, and all of that, with the right regions, at the right price points, is the portfolio’s job, and that is really exciting,” he concludes.

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