this weeks news from the wine industry digest looks at the trade headlines, including champagne’s early harvest and the wsta board changes.
andrew johnson from woodwinters joins us to discuss the brutal realities facing the uk wine trade. we deep dive into the practical side of agency life, navigating cash flow pressures, and the evolving landscape of restaurant wine lists. andrew shares his love for the current south african and italian wines and laments the loss of the wine trade friday lunch. he’s an advocate for greece too, with a new greek wine scholarship project aimed at championing indigenous varietals for the on and off trade.
news
champagne is heading toward its earliest harvest on record, with some estimates pointing to mid-august. this creates a logistical headache as producers cut their three-week august holidays short to manage what is expected to be a bumper crop.
elsewhere, whispering angel has made a strategic move by investing in friend of the show matthew jukes’ premium alcohol-free cordialities rather than launching an in-house non-alcoholic line. dan thinks it is a pragmatic approach that separates them directly from zero-alcohol version of their own brands.
pop a comment below with any suggestions for the name when they inevitably release whispering angel 0.0% in a year or two so we can secure the tm now.
finally, steve finlan, ceo of the wine society, and brad’s new boss, has joined the wsta board. miles beale their ceo thinks the appointment is a signal of the organisation’s intent to diversify its perspective, balancing traditional trade voices with commercially focused leadership from outside the typical wine-specialist mould.
andrew
andrew’s career path is a testament to the circuitous nature of the industry, moving from classical music and estate agency into the wine trade during the final days of oddbins.
we have a proper look at the current state of the uk wine trade, andrew is vocal about the current, brutal reality of the uk trade, noting that decimated lunch trade and rising costs have led to a “survival of the fittest” environment where many accounts are simply handing back their keys.
his philosophy is shaped by pragmatism, while he views buying not as an act of personal curation, but as a discipline of managing cash flow and stock relevance. at woodwinters, where he has been a partner for nine years, he oversees a business that is 75% wholesale, with a deep focus on italy and an increasingly dynamic portfolio.
success in the trade now relies on team buy-in, it is nearly impossible to sell a wine his team does not genuinely love. we look at this through the lens of south africa, arguably the most dynamic region for wine. he credits this to a culture of camaraderie where winemakers, especially across the second and third “waves,”
despite this, he remains optimistic, with light at the end of a pretty long tunnel. there is potential for regions like greece if we get it right, starting with telling people what the wines are. as a reaction to that, he is currently launching the greek wine scholarship, a project designed to champion indigenous varietals and provide educational opportunities for buyers and sommeliers.
andrew has a clear affection for the wines of piedmont, specifically bruno giacosas fairy dust on top of perfection. predictably, a staunch advocate for assyrtiko as one of the most exciting varieties available today. outside of wine, he is an avid tennis player and an enthusiastic home cook who prefers spending hours in the kitchen to doing the dishes.
wrap up
a quick shout out from dan for the cambridge wine festival, held in the grounds of corpus christi college, run by the same people as the south coast wine fest which you can catch in a couple of weeks.
brad as ever has been staying up late to watch the world cup, completetd by a bottle of the balfour and botham wines bottle we spoke about last time. dan is still waiting for his bottle.
we recorded this on monday after the quarter final, but dan’s writing the notes after getting stuck in watching the semi into the small hours of saturday night. dan instead got stuck into the mosh pit with free throw at the norwich waterfront.
feel free to share with a friend
woodwinters wines and whiskies
quotes
“you can’t sugarcoat it. we all need to be positive and we all need to find a way to support each other, but all the financial and structural indicators are there to make it bloody tough.”
“bringing on a new agency is a massive pressure on cash flow. whatever that purchase order is, four grand, ten grand, twenty grand, that’s just cash gone out of your business for six months. you’ve really got to believe in it.”
“i was in a restaurant the other day with well over a hundred covers. all you could see was water, water, coke, water, glass of wine. lunchtime drinking has been decimated.”
“i do see light at the end of the tunnel. without trying to be too clichéd about it, it looks like a pretty long tunnel.”
“when you get a wine that’s perfect, and then there’s just a little bit of fairy dust sprinkled on top of the perfection, that’s what the old wines of bruno giacosa were like.”
news, links and notes
wine industry digest – the week in wine every friday
https://wineindustrydigest.com/
champagne on course for earliest harvest start date ever
02 July 2026, by patrick schmitt
https://wineindustrydigest.com/champagne-on-course-for-earliest-harvest-start-date-ever
Following an unusually early and heavily frost-damaged start to the season, followed by recent heatwave conditions, Champagne could be on course for the earliest start date for harvesting in its long history.
whispering angel creator invests in premium alcohol-free brand
06 july, 2026, by oliver catchpole
sacha lichine, the creator of iconic rosé whispering angel, has announced his appointment as an investor in jukes cordialities – a british premium alcohol-free wine-alternative brand.
the wine society ceo takes a seat at the wsta board
june 30, 2026
the wine and spirit trade association (wsta) has welcomed steve finlan, ceo of the wine society and highly experienced retailer, to its board.
