
Even by our standards, The Society’s Anniversary range was an ambitious project. Long before plans for our 150th anniversary had been finalised, our buyers were on the hunt for special wines to offer to members.
Fittingly, it started with our oldest suppliers, Alfred Gratien and the 2012 Champagne vintage. Marcel Orford-Williams, Champagne buyer at the time, had visited during the harvest and suggested Gratien make more vintage wines in 2012 and keep some by for us. After returning to taste the vin clair – the still wine that results from the first fermentation – he doubled our reserve and Gratien also increased the quantity destined for their vintage Champagne, such was the quality of the year. Our friends at Gratien, partners since 1906, and the people behind several previous special bottlings for us, generously agreed to reserve the wine and put our 150th label on it.

Exclusive blends & stellar vintages
The gauntlet had been laid down and Marcel’s fellow buyers started to look out for some great vintages from some of our A-list producers suitable for the occasion of our 150th. We were delighted that so many were equally thrilled to be involved. We were allowed exclusive access to cellars and significant parcels of wine to create our own blends or put our own label on wines from some of the best vintages of the past 20 years – something unheard of at this fine-wine level.
Being given the chance at Jaboulet to make our own interpretation of Hermitage, for example; blending with the winemakers at Contino to produce our 2014 Rioja Reserva; blending chardonnay with the Brajkovich family at Kumeu River from two of their top vineyards, Maté and Coddington; putting together an exclusive cuvée of Margaux with Ben Sichel, whose family have been supplying us with our top-selling Society’s Claret for nearly 35 years in 2024 and Margaux from the family château, Angludet, for even longer.

Poignant reminders & beautiful tributes
There are also stories tinged with sadness. The Anniversary Sauternes from the 2016 vintage, the year we lost Professor Denis Dubourdieu whose family property, Doisy-Daëne, was the source for our wine. Then there’s Jim Clendenen, the ‘wild boy’ of wine, who had been so enthusiastic about producing a special bottling for our anniversary. Au Bon Climat had been at the top of our list for this wine – our 2020 Anniversary Santa Barbara Chardonnay turned out to be Jim’s last vintage and is a wonderful tribute to the man. Annagret Reh-Gartner from Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt, another true friend of The Wine Society, died in 2016, but would have been thrilled to have been the source of our Anniversary Piesporter Goldtröpfchen Riesling.
The story behind the label

We have history at The Wine Society of producing special labels for special occasions. Indeed, the Celebration range, launched in 1989 to celebrate the opening of a new cellar and Showroom in Stevenage, was so popular with members that it became a regular feature. This was then relaunched as the Exhibition range in 1999, in time for our 125th anniversary and the new millennium. The range has gone from strength to strength thanks to members’ enthusiastic support and reflecting the increased choice of excellent-quality wine now available from right across the wine world.
So, for our 150th anniversary label we wanted to come up with something really special. Several design agencies pitched for the project and we had some excellent ideas to choose from. In the end we commissioned Abigail Barlow of Barlow & Co.
Our approach to the design was to create an authentic retrospection and celebration of The Society’s rich history. We revived graphic elements and took design cues from past Wine Society List covers, like the Art Nouveau styled women from the 1903 cover, and the stacked typography inspired by the original 1880 edition. The intention was for the design to not only commemorate The Wine Society’s history, but that even the smaller considered details of the label endorse the producers, the buyers, and the exclusivity of the rangeAbigail Barlow of design agency Barlow & Co
Although we chose widely available paper stocks for the labels, we couldn’t have envisaged the shortages our suppliers would experience during lockdown. Getting some of the labels printed at this time with Zoom calls from bedrooms and kitchen tables created a real sense of collaboration, with suppliers and printers across the world helping each other to get the finished results.

One story from this period sticks in the mind in particular:
South Africa suffered particularly badly during the Covid-19 lockdowns, and in an emotional conversation with Kanonkop’s sales and marketing manager, Deidre Taylor, I discovered what our wine order meant for them. She had been pregnant when she first started talking to buyer Joanna Locke MW about a special wine for us:
'This was an exciting project and one we are immensely proud to be a part of but there had been several delays along the way which had seemed frustrating at the time; now it seems that the timing couldn't have been more perfect. The order came along just at the right timek[ when we most needed it, for which we are extremely grateful.'
When we spoke, the wine had been bottled and the label printed and was ready for shipping, and Deidre’s daughter had turned three!
The Society's 150th Anniversary Stellenbosch Cabernet 2015
Fostering long-term relationships
Foundations for some of the excellent relationships we enjoy with some of the wine world’s top producers were laid down many years ago and are testament to bonds of friendship forged between individuals as well as organisations.

The Society’s 150th Anniversary Geyserville Zinfandel 2019
Our connection with Ridge, titan of the California wine scene, for example, is down to a meeting of minds between former Chair of The Wine Society Edmund Penning-Rowsell (1964-1987) and Paul Draper, Ridge’s winemaker for more than three decades.
Paul told us how he met Edmund and his wife Meg in California and had the chance to show them around the state, getting to hear about The Wine Society during this time. We started to buy the wines and Paul later attributed some of their success in the overall UK market to ‘the appreciation of buyers and members for the quality of fine zinfandel over the years to be a real factor in the significant amount of that variety we are asked to provide to the UK market as a whole.’
Current buyer Sarah Knowles MW picked up the baton and worked with Ridge’s winemaker Eric Baugher and Paul, who sits on the board, to secure an exclusive wine from the famous Geyserville vineyard for our anniversary bottling.
The Society's 150th Anniversary Geyserville Zinfandel 2019
It is another of Sarah’s winemakers that traces our working relationship back to Edmund Penning-Rowsell’s time at The Wine Society, too.

The Society’s 150th Anniversary Chianti Classico 2015
Fontodi’s Giovanni Manetti told us how he first started working with The Wine Society nearly 40 years ago: ‘It was the beginning of the 1980s, Edmund visited with Sebastian Payne MW. I was a teenager, they were my very first clients! Since then, Sebastian has visited every year. We taste the new vintage together and discuss it. It is always exciting and a great pleasure and one of the highlights of the year.’
When it came to selecting a wine for this range, the Fontodi estate was our first choice. Sebastian, who selected the wine, chose the excellent 2015 Chianti Classico, not the Riserva wine, and didn’t do a unique blend as he felt the Giovanni’s wine ‘couldn’t be bettered’.
Sarah has carried on the tradition, and Giovanni, who has always been so welcoming to Wine Society members to his property, looks forward to supplying members for many more years to come.
The Society's 150th Anniversary Chianti Classico 2015
Fruitful partnerships
One wine in the Anniversary range stands out when it comes to great relationships. Our special cuvée of Gigondas is the result of several winemakers coming together to create a special blend. We have never done anything like this before, and the wine is testament to the great rapport and mutual respect between the producers and The Society.

The Society’s 150th Anniversary Gigondas 2018
The genesis of this wine was actually a Wine Society tasting, where Louis Barruol of Château de Saint-Cosme, a leading property in this appellation, gave a masterclass to members alongside four other family growers. It accompanied a book launch on the region and got buyer Marcel Orford-Williams’ thinking about how interesting it would be to put together a blend of these producers’ different, but complementary wines. He set this group of winemakers and friends the task of making a wine that really showed off this southern Rhône village in all its glory!
The story behind our 150th Anniversary Gigondas

Changing the shape of wine
The Gigondas wine is a beautiful testimony to friendship and mutual respect, who knows, it may even change ideas around co-blending between properties at the fine-wine level? Certainly, visits by our wine buyers have brought about new ideas, and the Anniversary Mendoza Malbec from Bodegas y Cavas Weinert is the product of such an invention and meeting of minds. Iduna Weinert tells us more:

The Society’s 150th Anniversary Mendoza Malbec 2007
Tonel Unico 141
Toby Morrhall has been visiting since the late 1990s. In July 2016, we received Toby and during his visit he noticed our cask (Tonel) #111, the last cask of 1994 malbec and by far the oldest wine ageing in deep cellars.
By itself, this was a powerful, deep and amazing wine, with vibrant tension, but with such a big personality that in blends it competed and overpowered the other elements. After tasting a sample from the cask during his visit, Toby had the idea to present it as a special offer of a mature malbec. It was finally bottled specially for Wine Society members in April 2017 after 23 years of ageing in cask #111, the longest ageing period we've produced for one particular wine.
The success of Tonel Unico #111 was such that, since then, we have been selecting other mature casks together with Toby that reflect our philosophy of grasping time as one of our biggest allies in producing profound and complex wines, with layers that take you into a wine trip at each glass.
The Society's 150th Anniversary Mendoza Malbec 2007
The concept of Tonel Unico was born, and the opulent 2007 vintage, bottled after 15 years in barrel #141, is a wonderful treat for our celebratory year, even if there is still no hurry to drink it!
Every bottle in our Anniversary range tells a story, with each reflecting the rich heritage within. Click on the buttons below to find out more about this special range.