A message from our CEO, Steve Finlan
We hope that you are well and adjusting to these unusual times.
We want to reassure you that we are working hard to reopen The Wine Society when it is safe to do so. Until then, orders and deliveries remain suspended and we are not taking applications for membership or new subscriptions to our Wine Without Fuss and Vintage Cellar Plan schemes. Our Tastings & Events programme remains cancelled until the end of June and our Cellar Showroom in Stevenage is closed until further notice.
We are keeping our FAQs section up to date and a smaller home-based Member Services team is working to ensure that you receive the communication you need. Please be patient if you need to contact Member Services as they are dealing with an unprecedented volume of enquiries.
During this time we also hope that members and non-members can continue to enjoy our online 'Discovery' content, share our love of wine and spend time together on our Community pages.
Our organisation is a family of members, employees and winemakers and, just as in any family, keeping people safe is our priority. This approach is also consistent with the core government policy of staying at home, flattening the curve and helping the NHS.
Information and advice are changing daily, and we are sure that this will continue, but this core message remains the same. We reached our decision because we could not be sure that we could keep our employees – and, by extension, their families – safe. We do not want to place our employees at risk, nor do we want to compel them to come to work.
Thank you for your overwhelming support. We have been in touch with our extended family of winemakers and all of them fully support our decision. You may be interested to know that those in the badly affected parts of France, Italy and Spain have been very vocally supportive, being closer to the peak spread of Covid-19 in their countries.
Our Committee is also fully behind the decision to close and we are in close contact, working together to navigate these choppy waters.
We are striving to make this break as short as possible and are developing a plan to reopen in a safe and controlled way, using a smaller (and fully paid) volunteer workforce, who are comfortable and safe to work.
These are not normal times and it is unlikely that we will achieve a normal level of business service and support for a while, but as usual, we will do our best. We will endeavour to provide timely and effective communication as this rapidly evolving situation continues to develop. In the meantime, thank you again to you all for your understanding and support.