The Wine Society goes from strength to strength
Perhaps surprisingly, the inter-war period was one of real growth for The Wine Society with membership increasing from 5,000 in 1922 to 10,000 in 1932. Then following the Second World War, when membership reopened in 1948, several thousands of members joined each year, only temporarily slowed by the increase of the share price in 1952 to £5.
Even in the recessionary years of the seventies, The Society continued to grow, all this time, just through word of mouth of existing members. The 55,000th share was issued during our centenary year in 1974.
It’s testament to the quality of the wines offered and our competitive prices, which were clearly attractive in those difficult times. Then as now, this is thanks to our mutual model and our founding principles, which included:
No Dividend will at any time be payable on the Shares, which will form the Working Capital of the Society.
Wines will be sold at the lowest possible price, and for ready money only.
…which together with our other core ‘Objects’ was printed at the start of each wine List at the time.
Wartime conditions
Membership was closed for seven years – even King Haakon of Norway, resident in Britain during this time, was refused membership!
Members were asked to reduce their orders and the Lists carried a notice regarding shortages.
In 1940 our offices in Holles Street, Cavendish Square were badly damaged in a bombing raid on Oxford Street (destroying our earliest wine Lists and other documents). The office was moved to a rented house in Woodville Gardens, Ealing.
Our archives revealed some interesting bottles which tell something of the lengths gone to keep the wine coming in even when imports were restricted:
It’s well documented that the occupying forces in France were rather fond of Champagne and apparently preferred to keep the original label as a mark of quality, overprinting with ‘property of the Wehrmacht’.
This label from our archive shows that our own private cuvée Champagne from Alfred Gratien was also commandeered. Incidentally, the team at Alfred Gratien still call our wine ‘Cuvée 33’ and this legacy lives on in the wine’s reference number.
Expansion of The Society’s cellars
In 1934 a lease was signed on cellars in Joiner Street, underneath London Bridge Station to add space to the existing cellars in Hills Place. Then in 1959 we became shareholders and tenants of St James’s Bond, Rotherhithe which also had a bottling plant. Unfortunately, the cellars flooded on the high spring and autumn tides, creating all sorts of problems (though the water didn’t get into the wine!)
Operating out of three different sites across London was becoming expensive and impractical and offered little room for expansion. By the 1960s the Committee started to look for new premises. A grant from the New Towns Commission eventually brought about the move to Stevenage in 1965. Described as a ‘life-saving’ move for The Society, it almost certainly wouldn’t have happened without the drive and vision of then Chairman Edmund Penning-Rowsell.
Edmund had joined The Wine Society in 1940, was elected to the Committee in 1959 and served as Chair from 1964 to 1987. He was passionate about The Society and transformed it into the modern business it is today.
View the newsletter featuring an obituary of Edmund Penning-Rowsell
The move to Stevenage
The Stevenage corporation built, to our own specification, temperature-controlled bonded and un-bonded warehouses, including a bottling line, and an office block. The buildings cost £180,000 and were given to us on a 60-year lease. There was work for around 70 people and many of the staff in London relocated to the new town.
More than a million bottles were transferred from the ancient cellars in London to the new above-ground facility in Stevenage, all over the course of one weekend!
Photos courtesy of Stevenage Museum
Read more about the move to Stevenage in this article by then Chairman Edmund Penning-Rowsell
Our own van fleet
When we moved out of London, the Hamer family, who had run The Society’s transport since 1912, carried on delivering within a 50-mile radius of Stevenage. In 1971 we acquired the business and soon the familiar red vans appeared, delivering to London and the south-east and to railway terminals.
A more modern-looking Society
In the post-war years The Wine Society was not in great financial shape. Penning-Rowsell was instrumental in turning things around, transforming the business by reinvigorating the management team, persuading the Committee to move out of London and influencing an expansion in the variety and quality of wines listed.
There were several appeals to members for interest-free loans to help finance the purchase of new vintages and for building work. Crowdfunding, once again making an important difference to the future of The Wine Society and our members generously coming to its aid.
A new looking Wine Society
He also encouraged artist Peter Probyn and designer Christopher Bradshaw (who would succeed him as Chairman) to join the Committee.
The Wine Society’s publications saw a dramatic change and in 1960 typographer Diana Bloomfield was commissioned to create our distinctive logo.
What about the wine?
There was a surprising number of liqueurs, fortified wines and aperitifs taking up several pages in the Lists with recipes for cocktails and cups from the days of the Roaring Twenties to the cheese and pineapple period of the 1960s and 1970s.
The 1930s saw the introduction of appellation contrôlée regulations in some key production regions, dramatically improving quality standards. In the post-war period, Wine Society buyers started to visit more wine regions and improved foreign travel generally saw an increase in wine drinking in Britain. As well as the classic French regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy, our buyers actively sought out good wines from regions like the Rhône and Loire as well as French Country regions.
In 1950 the London-based Wine Society Dining Club was formed (Edmund Penning-Rowsell was a founder member). They produced a report on the wines offered by The Society and were quite critical of the lack of choice in higher-quality cru Bordeaux. From 1953 there were significant improvements in the number of clarets offered.
It was at this time that a Wine Society buying team really began. Albert Cable, Wine Society manager from 1955-1966 was instrumental in instituting the buying function. He had started as a junior clerk in 1926 at the age of 18 and moved to Buying in 1933. He was a prodigious taster much admired by those Masters of Wine that came after him, including Christopher Tatham in 1959 and Sebastian Payne, who originally joined as Promotion Manager in 1973.
1970 also saw our first paid members’ tasting (of claret and Burgundy, perhaps predictably!), and in 1971 we imported Lebanon’s Chateau Musar for the first time and the first merchant to import it into the UK.
New Society’s wines
The 1960 List saw the introduction of a series of wines ‘from the principal winefields’
'A Short history of Wine Society labels' published in 1999, gives some more background to our own labels.
The design of the gin and vodka labels in particular, showed the design flair of the era:
The Society celebrates its centenary
We celebrated our centenary with Champagne parties, a reception in the Royal Albert Hall, a dinner at Vintners Hall and a prize-draw giveaway of 500 bottles, all pre 1900 vintage!
Just as in 2024, a special range of celebratory bottles were produced especially for the occasion.
The inside story on how the Centenary Claret came about was written about in Sebastian Payne MW’s retirement piece and is a wonderful tale of a creative thinking after a bit of a slip up on the bottling line!
Sebastian Payne MW's last Last Word | The Wine Society
The Generation Series
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Magnum of The Wine Society`s Generation Series Vinsobres 2021
The Wine Societys Generation Series South African Red 2023
The Wine Society`s Generation Series Australian Cabernet-Merlot 2022
The Wine Society`s Generation Series Muscadet 2022
The Wine Society`s Generation Series Chianti Classico 2021
The Wine Society`s Generation Series Graves Blanc 2021
The Wine Society`s Generation Series Vinsobres 2021
The Wine Society`s Generation Series Gentil, Alsace 2021
Generation Series Case: Series 2
