Cheers to Leighton Buzzard's Online Wine Club which beat Ocado to a prestigious award

The owners of an innovative Leighton wine company that initiated online wine tasting during the pandemic are celebrating after winning the prestigious UK Online Wine Retailer of the Year.

Alex Taylor and Jamie Smith of The Online Wine Tasting Club beat rivals Ocado and Wine Delivered in the People’s Choice Wine Awards. The three finalists were selected by professional judges and there was a public vote to decide the winner.

Alex, a Cambridge-educated engineer who designed mobile phones before retraining as a winemaker, says: "We’re such a small company, it felt surreal winning. But we're so proud to receive recognition for our continuous innovation.

"I don't think anybody’s shaken things up quite as much as we have over the last few years . . . and we've certainly worked our guts out.”

The two friends and business partners met at a wine bar in Berkhamsted in 2017 and immediately clicked. They set up a wine shop together just before lockdown but soon realised the pandemic would curtail the operation and that people would be stuck at home with nothing to do.

Alex says: “We believe we were the first in the world to come up with the idea of online wine tasting and it grew from there. It had massive appeal during lockdown.

"People can go out now but not everybody can afford a babysitter, taxis, a restaurant. We wanted to create something you could do at home, at your own convenience, for a fraction of the cost of a night out.”

And so their letterbox tasting packs were born – offering six different wines in a slim container.

Alex admits it wasn’t easy: “Making small portions of wine turned out to be far more involved – and expensive – than we’d ever imagined.

"We had to invent new materials and the packaging equipment we created – called ecoSIP – is the cheapest, lightest and most eco-friendly way of packing a glass of wine and keeping it in perfect condition."

Their Online Wine Tasting Club is available on YouTube and features the two exchanging notes and banter.

It’s a huge success because they listened to their customers, who didn't want to be lectured for hours about the geeky intricacies of winemaking or which years were best in Bordeaux.

They wanted entertainment and interaction – to spend an hour or so having fun, learning how to find a great wine and hearing interesting stories.

Leighton Buzzard locals can have bottles delivered for free, but the club is mostly known for its monthly letterbox tasting packs. These offer six wines that usually range from £15 to £30 - known in the trade as the ‘sweet spot’ for wine.

There’s a minute-long video about each, or a YouTube live interactive tasting with chat, quizzes and tasting notes so you can ask anything you've ever wanted to know about wine.

Alex enjoys a Californian Chardonnay or Pinot but says, tongue in cheek: “Jamie has always been in the hospitality industry and is an expert, so obviously drinks only Blue Nun . . .”

The company has picked up numerous accolades including two from Decanter magazine, Innovator of the Year from the International Wine Challenge and a Start Up Manufacturing gong. In 2021, Jamie won the International Emerging Talent in Wine award.

Both are big supporters of English wine and have been judges at the Independent English Wine Awards.

Alex says: “The challenge is that we don't make enough of it at the moment, so it's definitely in the ‘treat yourself’ category – it's not cheap.

"English sparklings are the headline world-beating wines, but some of the top-end stills are also doing incredibly well. Our dirty little secret is that Essex and East Anglia in general seem to be the best place for still wine. The Chilterns make some incredible sparkling wine - Harrow and Hope in Marlow and Chafor in Gawcott are our local heroes.”

He adds: “We've also met some amazing characters, like Geoff Buckingham who has a vineyard called Double Hedges near Toddington Services off the M1. He’s making wines that you honestly would not believe came from such humble beginnings.”

Alex’s wife Naomi runs the Chiltern Arts Festival while Jamie’s spouse Heidi is one of UCL’s top Alzheimer researchers.

Both couples have children aged five and eight.

Jamie lives in Tring and Alex in Berkhamsted, so their Leighton Buzzard factory is equally convenient.

Alex rates the great transport connections and the fact they’re surrounded by so different companies: “No matter what we need, there’s virtually always a local company which can help.

"There's a great community around Cherrycourt Way estate, where we’re based.”

Their next venture is Trivino – a box of 12 glasses of wine, modelled on the Kelloggs variety pack.

Alex explains: “It’s a new way to enjoy wine during the week. You can pick and choose what you want without wastage – a healthy glass packed full of antioxidants, without the worry of drinking too much.”

He’s come a long way since discovering wine as a teenager on a trip to Burgundy: "A sommelier made it his mission to feed me better and better wines, showing me the differences between the two sides of the road. Suddenly it made sense.

"But I only realised that wine could be a career after a road trip round the wine regions of California."

Jamie’s wine story also starts in America where he worked in a Washington DC restaurant, humping boxes of wine up and down from the cellar.

The former Aylesbury Grammar boy soon showed his talent and was taken under the team’s wing.

They let him taste all sorts of incredible wines and taught him about the great producers and how the weather could help them create something so different but still so delicious.

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