Arran Brewery moves into wine trade

ARRAN Brewery, the Scottish beer maker that was bought out of administration three years ago, is expanding into the wine trade on the back of £500,000-plus investment.

The company, which now boasts more than 3000 trade customers across the UK, has struck a deal with Cavalier Wines, a merchant based on the Channel island of Sark, and a consortium of vineyard owners to offer a wine list of more than 300 boutique wines from Italy, France and Spain.

The Scottish brewery, which was set up in Cladach, near Brodick, nine years ago by Richard and Elisabeth Roberts, went into administration in May 2008 and was bought by Gerald Michaluk’s Glasgow-based Marketing Management Services International for an undisclosed sum a month later.

Mr Michaluk said: “We’re rekindling the wine trade of the Auld Alliance.”

While, originally, the Auld Alliance was built a shared need by Scotland and France to curtail English expansion, for many Scots it also brought access to the finest French wines.

The signing of the Auld Alliance in 1295 gave French support to Scotland against England, but it also gave the Scottish merchants the privilege of selecting the first choice of Bordeaux’s finest wines – often to the annoyance of English wine drinkers who usually received an inferior product.

The entrepreneur, whose brewery has since expanded capacity, added several new beers to its range and won medals at the World Beer Awards, said: “The goal now is to try to raise the standard of wine in Scottish pubs.

“Most people who order a glass of wine in a pub cringe as soon as they take their first sip. We’d like to put an end to that.

“The idea is that when we are sending our delivery trucks through Europe to deliver our beer, previously the trucks came back empty.

“Now we’ll be loading them with wine. And it will all be of very fine quality at affordable prices.

“Because the duty is paid on alcohol content rather quality, the better the quality of wine, the better the value.

“Together, including the assets of the wine and all the associated costs of getting it here, the investment amounts to around £500,000.”

After the wines are transported from Europe, they will be held in bonded warehouses in Hillington, Renfrewshire.

Mr Michaluk said: “We’ll be targeting Italian restaurants with our large selection of Italian wines, but we’ll also be targeting our 3000 trade customers throughout the UK, most of which are pubs.”

In total Arran Brewery, whose expansion into the wine market includes a partnership with Le Cercle Rive Droite, an association of 137 Claret producers, will keep in bonded storage almost 16,000 bottles of wine.

He added: “What is unique about the whole range of wines from France, Italy and Spain is that each has great provenance and a story to tell, like the Arran Brewery itself.

“These fine wines, like the beers of Arran, are distinctive, have character, and offer excellent value for money.”