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Akos Forczek: ‘Looking Back, Forging Ahead’

It’s been 25 years since you set up Top Selection. In that time, has your business seen a lot of evolution, or has it been a fairly steady course?

This is the sixth major kind of recession in the wine industry that I’m living through. I started in 2000 and I had 9/11, of course, then SARS came, which was kind of like the precursor of Covid, but nobody took it seriously. That had a massive impact in Asia, but it was all quick, and [the market] rebounded. Then there was the 2007 financial crisis, then we were hit by Brexit, which was, retrospectively speaking, a good thing, but at the time was very scary. And then Covid, and now this situation, so we’ve been around the block. You learn how to react to events like this. And you have to stick to your core competences and what you have been doing, although there’s always new ways of doing [business] with new people, because people change and businesses change. That’s just the nature of our business, because we are ultimately a people business. We are connected to people, and this is the one aspect that has always carried us through every difficult moment – the long-lasting relationships that we have with our clients, and also with our suppliers. And these two things that are very important, because that’s what keeps the business afloat.

Looking back, if this is the sixth big hit to the drinks sector, how does it compare to some of the others that you mentioned?

In the past, the UK has always been very quick in reacting to recessions or any kind of financial crisis, or things like that, and has been equally fast in rebounding. But now I don’t see the rebounding happening. It’s a long, drawn-out recession for the wine industry, it’s been long and steady, going down, and at the moment it’s staying down. But it’s not just the wine industry itself (which has certain specific issues), there’s a general environment of uncertainty. The major problem is that no business likes uncertainty, and I think that the governments currently in place, whether that’s in the UK or the US or elsewhere, they just basically provide uncertainty, and that has a massive impact on people’s willingness to spend. I don’t think there’s been a period in the world where there was more cash floating around than today, but no one will invest with this uncertainty. I’m not saying it’s deeper as a recession, but its definitely longer.

What are one or two of the biggest things that could be changed to help the drinks industry?

I grew up under communism, and [the government today] are as pro-business as the regime that I grew up under – they don’t care. They impose rules on us that the people that they employ don’t even understand themselves. Leave us alone to do our business. Don’t burden us with more administrative stuff that we have to do. The amount of reporting businesses have to do now is very short sighted, because the average consumer is going to take the hit, because the quality of the products is going down. People are forced to make lower alcohol percentage wines to meet the mass market requirements of price points for them to sell. These are products that have been (excuse my French) castrated. I’m not saying this will affect tremendously the high end, but on entry level products it does have a huge impact. [Furthermore], if I look at how much money we collect for the government – VAT and duty, we are tax collectors. We had a fairly decent, simplified system. It has become so complex. Simply, compliance is insane. I don’t know why, when things are going badly governments need to increase taxes. But we have no choice. We have to comply with it.

On a lighter note, what are you most proud of achieving as a business recently?

The fact that, despite all these difficulties, we have more and more new accounts coming to us. It’s kind of a schizophrenic situation, because times are difficult, but stock markets are at an all time high, which means that rich people are very, very rich. And there is a constant flow of money coming into London, so [restaurant] openings are happening one after the other, which is a positive. I think every business is most tested in difficult times, and these are the moments when the resilience of a business shines through. My view is, try to live within your means. The last 12 months, really, starting from May or June last year, we have worked harder than we worked before for less. But I believe that you need to appreciate what you have and the people that you work with, and the new people who come on board with you. Then, when times turn good, they will be there with you as well, and then you have the platform to grow.

Looking at your portfolio, what sort of trends are you seeing at the high end of the market?

If you look at the market at the very top end, the issue is that people are sitting on too much wine. Wine was an attractive business commodity because interest rates were at an all-time low, and markets were volatile. And then all of a sudden, interest rates started to rise, and so people realized they don’t have to pay storage fees, and that they can get higher returns by putting [the money] in banks. And they said ‘well you know what, let’s just sell the wine’. But then what happened was that the volume of wine that came onto the market was so big that it started to drive the prices down. Then people were looking at their own wine investments and they [started to sell]. And this downwards spiral is where we are at the moment, and I don’t think that we are at the bottom of it. There’s a lot of people sitting on the fence and they’re waiting for the right price to come.

What of quality wines that are treated as less of an investment vehicle, and more as simply good to drink?

Those who drank quality wine before, they continue drinking quality wine now as well, because they see that they get more for their money. Value-for-money remains very important. I think that there is a possibility of selling wines to people that come from lesser-known areas, whether in Burgundy, or anywhere else. The high prices of the big appellation wines opens up an opportunity to talk to new consumers with lesser appellations of the same wine region, but exceptional quality wine.

Quick Fire Questions:

If you could only drink wine from one western European region, where would you choose?

Burgundy

What about central or eastern Europe?

I’m Hungarian, I won’t leave Tokaj

Normal or natural wines?

Normal, hands down

Cocktails or sipping spirits?

I can’t answer that straight – if a spirit is really good it needs to be drunk neat, but my favourite cocktail is an Old Fashioned.

Do you prefer cocktails mixed by yourself or by a mixologist?

Mixologists are magicians

Eating out or at home?

Both – I love to cook, it makes me happy, but I cannot produce what the artists create, so I get equal pleasure either way

Perfect drinking occasion?

Drinking is sharing, so it has to be with friends

Could you pick a favourite wine?

I would probably drink an Egon Müller Riesling Kabinett to start, then a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, probably La Tâche, and then to follow up I would finish with a Szepsy Tokaji

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