About Us

Bordeaux and Beyond has been trading since 2007 when the wine interests of Tony Hill and John Green coincided with John Lotinga’s France-based Prince Albert Fine Wines. We are the two owner/directors and share the running of the business with occasional assistance from John L as our associate and fluent speaker of French! Tony is based in Berkshire, John G. in Northants and John L. is across the water in Boulogne sur Mer.

Together we have a wide range of business experience ranging from consultancy, to corporate banking and executive roles within world famous drink and hotel companies. More importantly we have been enjoying and exploring French Wines, their distinctive “terroirs” and appellations for over 30 years each – and plan to continue for at least another 30!

We decided that while the High Street retailer has a role to play in supplying standard wines there was also a growing need for a more boutique supplier, providing different wines of exceptional quality and character. Bordeaux and Beyond is the result of combining our knowledge, passion, high standards and overall “joie de vivre” to share with our customers and friends.

Our Ethos:

Expertise and Knowledge

We believe that you can only develop expertise when you specialise. We specialise only in wines from France, mostly from smaller artisan producers that we know personally and have learned from over the years.  Our knowledge of French wines is extensive and we avoid stocking wines from elsewhere in the world where our expertise is more  limited.

Personal Service

We pride ourselves in offering an efficient and attentive personal service. When you order through Bordeaux and Beyond you do business directly with the three of us. We are involved with every aspect of the business and really do try to make you feel that the wine that you have ordered comes from “your personal vineyard”

Low Costs

We aim to keep our costs and overheads to an absolute minimum and pass on the benefits as great wine value. We achieve this by doing as much work as we can ourselves, by not operating costly shops but by ordering directly from the vineyards and holding stocks in an excise bonded warehouse. Marketing expenditure is kept very low, our website is simple yet functional and we dont do glossy brochures or expensive mail-shots. This helps to keep our margins lower than the High Street and larger mail order companies. Our intention is that for every £ that you spend with Bordeaux & Beyond you enjoy as much actual wine value as possible and don’t bear the costs of wasted ancillaries.

Focus

We never stock more than 40 wines at any one time. Not for us a stock of hundreds of anonymous wines that we have not enjoyed drinking ourselves! We would soon lose our focus and attention to detail and prefer our wines to be personal to us.  We believe that “small is beautiful” and you should never promise anything that cannot be delivered.

Selection

We are proud to be a niche wine merchant and our selection of wines that we have particularly enjoyed is both different and exciting by design. This allows us to offer both traditional favourites and some innovative styles of wine from passionate vignerons. All of our wines are personal selections and many have a distinctive story to tell – that of grower champagne, organic or bio-dynamic viticulture or just being from passionate artisans making great tasting wines that are different!  These artisan producer wines are often unavailable in the UK but we import directly and hence ensure quality and distinction at highly competitive prices.

Customer Service

We can offer all the usual additions to a wine business, eg. tastings, corporate selections, cellar advice etc. but that’s not really what makes us different from everyone else. What does make the difference is the individuality of our wines, our  enthusiasm for them and our belief in personal customer service rather than corporate contact.

Taste and Quality

We believe in the old adage that “life is too short to drink poor wine”. We personally know our vineyard suppliers and we refuse to sell anything that we would not drink ourselves. After all we stock less then 40 wines at any one time and our mantra is to offer only what we would be happy to buy, to drink or to cellar for our own pleasure and enjoyment.

Respect

We respect both our suppliers and our customers. Most of our wine is from small, family vineyards where respect is shown for the terroir, Mother Nature and the centuries of traditions of great wine making in France. These are more individualistic, quality wines of character made by owner-growers rather than industrial conglomerates seeking maximum short-term profits. Our customers are more discerning wine drinkers who increasingly prefer substance over style, terroir over chemicals and individual artisans over industrial scale production.