Tanners is family-owned, family-run, resolutely independent and celebrated its 180th anniversary in 2022. It is run by James Tanner, Chairman and Managing Director, the fourth generation of the family to work in the company, who took over from his father, Richard Tanner.
The firm employs over 100 people with the majority split between its distinctive, black & white headquarters in Shrewsbury and its distribution depot in Welshpool. Approximately half Tanners’ sales are to quality-minded hotels and restaurants and half to private clients and corporate customers such as universities, colleges and companies - not only locally but countrywide too. Good traditional service is what Tanners is about, but ‘traditional’ in the best sense of the word. We find it easier to deliver this with a core of long-serving staff and we are lucky in this respect, Tanners currently has more than a dozen members of staff who have completed 30 years with the firm.
The careful selection of wines is of paramount importance at Tanners. James Tanner and Stephen Crosland have done the buying together now for many years and are helped in their endeavours to travel and taste as widely as possible by Simon Jones and Robert Boutflower. We devote a lot of time to seeing our suppliers either in Shrewsbury or abroad since the best producers have to be convinced that their wine will end up with customers who will appreciate it. Quantities available are often limited and in this respect, a firm the size of Tanners has a distinct advantage over bigger enterprises.
To ensure quality and continuity it is essential to talk to a grower in his or her own cellars or winery. No two years are the same and an indolent farmer can make a good wine in a year that has favourable weather. Useful producers make good wines in the difficult years. It is only by seeing a grower’s cellars and assessing his or her attitude during conversation that one can get a proper idea of what sort of wine will be produced on a continuing basis. It is also only by careful questioning that one can establish just how ‘organic’ a producer really is, finding out whether they are just paying lip service while continuing on with as many treatments as ever! Fortunately many of our suppliers are at the forefront of the organic and biodynamic movement.
We are sometimes asked how we can compete on price. The answer is severalfold. Firstly we are rigorous in going direct to the producer and cutting out layers of middlemen. In this vein we have always maintained that wine is an agricultural product and has no need of big cities. Secondly Tanners is large enough to ship wine from just about anywhere in the world, in complete container quantities if necessary. We save further costs by shipping to our own bonded warehouse at Welshpool in Mid-Wales. Thirdly Tanners is a member of a buying consortium through our part ownership of the Merchant Vintners Company. This 25-strong association of independent wine merchants was founded in 1965 and now has a combined annual turnover of over £400 million.
The Bunch
The Bunch is made up of the proprietors or managing directors of seven of Britain’s leading independent wine merchants comprising Tanners, Yapp Brothers, Adnams, Lea & Sandeman, Corney & Barrow, Private Cellar and Haynes, Hanson & Clark. Its Code of Practice governs the way in which we sell En Primeur wines and look after customer reserves.
James Tanner
James has visited all the major wine-producing regions of the world, and many more besides. His first vineyard visits were at the age of four to châteaux Palmer and Angludet. Other early trips were to see the Brunier family at Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, Gérard Jaboulet at Tain l’Hermitage and Château de Fonscolombe in Provence. He led successful wine tasting teams whilst at school, Bristol University and Imperial College London, being the top-scoring undergraduate in the 1988 Peter Dominic inter-university wine tasting competition. His training included cellar and vineyard work at Chanson Père et Fils in Beaune; Château Palmer and Maison Sichel in Bordeaux; Brown Brothers and Yarra Burn Vineyard in Australia; Remelluri in Rioja; Concha y Toro in Chile and Marchesi di Frescobaldi in Tuscany. He also gained valuable retail, trade and warehouse experience in London, Sydney and Santiago de Chile.
The most widely held degree amongst Tanners staff is History but James is a geographer which explains his fascination with wine maps (he is currently producing the third set of maps of his career), his sometimes-annoying tendency to want to see what’s round the next corner and a geography-first organisation of the wines at Tanners. James is one of two Tanners directors to hold an MBA (Master of Business Administration).
The drinks trade runs on both James’s father’s and mother’s sides of his family. His maternal great-grandfather, Martin Mowat, was chairman of Hay & Son of Sheffield, eminent wine merchants in their time. His maternal grandfather, John Mowat, served as managing director of Border Breweries in Wrexham, which was partly formed from his and his uncle’s Island Green Brewery. James is married to Katy and they have three children, none of whom are in the business…yet.
