One of Bristol’s oldest companies is celebrating a momentous milestone this year after more than two centuries of business. Averys Wine Cellars will be 230 years old next month at least - as 1793 is as far back as records go for the wine merchant.
Averys is a fine wine merchant based on Culver Street in Bristol, selling bottles for every budget from £6.99 to £1,000. “Once you’re in here it’s like an Aladin’s Cave, both visually and in content,” said Brand Ambassador, Mimi Avery.
The shop floor is filled with rows and rows of bottles from all corners of the world - 23 to be exact, including France, Portugal, Germany, New Zealand and South Africa - although, the number changes as the shop sources different wines over time.
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On a visit to Culver Street, Mimi carefully recounted the history of the family business without a single flinch. Its history can be traced to 1793 when the merchant on the premises was first listed as a wine merchant – although the family has since found that distiller John Avery worked in Bristol 50 years prior.
The company was bought in the 1850s by Joseph Clarke Avery - becoming Averys & Co - and flourished throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries by pioneering new ways to source wine from all over the world.
She joined the business in 1999 making her the fifth-generation Avery working there. It was her grandfather, Ronald Avery, who made a name for Averys in bottling and shipping wine after it had become well-established in the West Country, quite literally sailing them to success after he joined the first visiting party to Château Palmer in 1948 following World War II.
Centuries of expertise
The UK wine trade has been inextricably linked with Bordeaux for centuries after Henry II’s marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, and part of her dowry included Bordeaux. That first visit by Ronald to Bordeaux was a bit of a gamble, Mimi explained, as merchants believed most of the stock earmarked for trade would have been lost to the German soldiers during the war.
“They’d managed to hide it from the German invaders. Palmer had been taken over as a Chateaux by the officers, but when [my grandfather] went back there in 1948, they said they had blocked off the cellar from the good stuff.”
Ronald was the first person to bring Pomerol wines from the Bordeaux region to the UK, including Château Pétrus, which is now one of the most expensive wines in the world and can fetch €6,000 a bottle for an exceptional vintage. Bordeaux continues to be a staple wine region for Averys and the entire UK, being the home of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
The pioneering streak continued from there. When his son, John, joined the business he was one of the first people to bring high-quality Californian wines back to the UK in 1964. A year later, he brought Australian wine to the UK for the first time and introduced products from New Zealand during the 1970s.
Mimi first began her Averys career in customer services, moving to become a shop assistant, a manager and then a wine buyer, helping to grow the company’s range from Portugal, Austria and lesser-known New World wines, which now make up around a quarter of Averys’ stock.
“We were one of the first companies to bring New World wines into the UK but the bulk of our customer base has not really followed that. We have some customers who do, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc is incredibly popular and rosé after it exploded in 2005 in the UK.”
Debunking wine myths
Through wine tastings and a passion for customer service, the Averys team has a wealth of knowledge, even helping to debunk wine myths that have crept their way into public consciousness. Like how certain white wines such as Riesling and Chardonnay developed a bad reputation after the birth of the wine aisle in UK supermarkets in 1973.
“Wines that they brought in were things that they could get in bulk and things that were easy to drink, like slightly off-dry to medium, fruity wines,” Mimi explained. “Riesling and Chardonnay flooded the market.”
Averys is trying to rebuild Riesling's reputation, and will often include it in their tasting sessions, even launching their own-label version in November. It has 18 own-label wines that tend to be classics of the regions, but Mimi is always on the hunt for more they can create.
Mimi said she loved that more people are now able to take an interest in wine through supermarkets as their entry point, and those who want to nurture their interests will later seek out a wine merchant like Averys. Although 40 per cent of its business is for restaurants, the company is seeing an increase in at-home clientele, especially during the pandemic when many drinkers wanted to spend more on less.
Today, Averys is owned by Laithwaites and operates as a standalone independent business within the group. The parent company has retail and buying connections in countries across the world, which helps with shipping, and whose costs have risen dramatically post-Brexit.
Fortunately, this hasn't had a drastic effect on Averys, who only have their eyes set on increasing its customer base in the UK, as they have done for decades. Mimi said: “The size we are at the moment, we’re not going to do global domination so why try?
"The main thing is to get more customers in the UK and make people realise we exist. We are Bristol’s best kept secret. There’s a lot of history but you can’t rely on it. We have fantastic customer service, we love our customers and they love us.”
A visit to the cellar and shop on Culver Street retains the Avery history beautifully, kitted out with old bottling machinery and artefacts believed to be from the Mauretania ship, which the company had historic links to through its site on Park Street. Downstairs is a beautiful vaulted cellar which has been converted into an atmospheric venue space used for screenings, tastings and even weddings.
Mimi will be hosting a wine tasting on March 29 to mark 230 years of Averys to offer her top picks that best exhibit the company’s long relationship with winemakers and the wine trade. Tickets are £30 per person available to purchase here.
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