We will all certainly remember 2016 as the year of
milestones. In the broader world 2016 was a year of quite some change, which
has given us a lot to reflect on. Beyond careful planning for the future, at
Justerini & Brooks it was a year we allowed a small focus on celebration.
Firstly, we had a couple of important anniversaries. Our business, which
started in St. James’s back in 1749, celebrated its 150th anniversary of doing
business with the United States. The arrival of ocean-going steam ships allowed
the rich and inquisitive of New York to come to London, and us to go there
(Justerinis subsequently opened an office there in 1866). Yet records show the
U.S. didn’t even house our first overseas customer – a lone Indian Maharaja
beats the glitzy and more broad arrival of Manhattan by eight years. From that
first customer we now service the needs of collectors across 49 different
countries.
In 2016 we also celebrated the 40th anniversary of my
pioneering predecessor Geoffrey Jameson opening up the Hong Kong market in
1976. As part of our anniversary celebrations in Hong Kong this year we
recreated one of his opening events, and took the top floor of the Peninsula
hotel for a fabulous party with many of our long-standing customers in
attendance, as well as some amazing large-format wines.
Beyond celebrating some history, we had more current
milestones to acknowledge. Cellarers Wines Ltd – our storage company which manages
our customers’ reserves – has recently been growing at an extraordinary and
unprecedented rate – taking in a further 44,000 cases of customer stock in just
the past two years. It seems that increasingly major collectors value what
Cellarers offers them, and which very few others do. Beyond the legal
protection and extra security of a separate limited company managing one’s
stock, it’s the knowledge that every case is landed with the owner’s name
physically placed on it along with the date it entered the warehouse – proving
each specific case belongs to its specific customer. At a time when so much customer
stock is bulk-landed into warehouses to quietly save companies money, such
peace of mind is invaluable. Please feel free to contact Cellarers at cellarers@justerinis.com for more information about storing with them.
So what has 2016 meant for us and our customers? Well,
Burgundy continues to shine. Sales growing a further 24% on the year before.
Thankfully with a slight drop in the average case price on that prior year
(down from £961 per case to £869.) Disappointingly, it seems that the large
gains of interest in Italy that we had been seeing in recent years took a pause
in 2016, with Italian sales dropping 9% on the year before, mainly driven by a
less exciting primeur campaign for Barolo. Even though the average case price
of Italian wine sold at Justerinis being £1060 (down from £1179 the year
before) which surprisingly still places the country’s top wines above our
Burgundy average. With the highly anticipated 2013 Barolo releases coming this
March it will be interesting to review these sales numbers again next
Christmas. Conversely, after many years of seeming disinterest, Rhone took off
in 2016 – growing a staggering 441% on the previous year. The average case
price, at £572, showing the difference the top estates of the Rhone Valley
offer compared with their more fashionable rivals elsewhere. Bordeaux, still by
far the biggest region for us and our customers, continued to come back from
its long period of stagnation – showing a second consecutive year of growth,
but this time more accelerated. Bordeaux sales grew 65% on the year before,
with the average sales price in 2016 being £1218 a case. We should touch on
whisky – a rapidly increasing area of interest with our customers, and one
which we’ve been putting a lot of work into servicing. Both the old, rare
bottlings and limited bottling runs, but also even individual casks of some of
the hardest to find Scotch whiskies getting bespoke-bottled for our private
customers. All of this has meant that overall our whisky sales have almost
doubled over the past two years, with this becoming a multi-million pound part
of our business. The average bottle price now a heady £719, which shows the
area of keenest focus amongst our whisky customers.
But we save the best to last. A region that Justerini &
Brooks has been proudly importing and championing for many decades, but which
fell out of favour more than forty years ago. The statistics for Germany this
year are incredible. In fact only possible because the growth in demand is not
only in the traditional sweeter styles but also due to the newer interest in
the dry styles of Riesling, plus the widening range of superb Pinot Noir now
being made there. Our Buyers also attended the famous Trier auctions this
autumn and bought, for the first time ever, a large array of special,
auction-only cuvees which were keenly taken up by our customers. In total it
meant that Germany grew a staggering 576% on the prior year, with the average
case price being easily the most attractive of all our key fine wine regions,
at £363.
2016 has equally been a year to note for reasons beyond
simple business. Our long association with the sport of polo continues (in both
England and India). Not only, in more recent years, our involvement at a global
level with supplying wines to British Polo Day as they tour their exquisite and
spectacular polo events across ten countries a year. Most currently just three
weeks ago with two incredible events in India, kindly hosted by the Maharajas
of Jaipur and Jodhpur. (Please view the Polo section within the Discover area
on www.justerinis.com/discover-justerinis to see more). But also back at home
2016 saw Justerini & Brooks title-sponsor the prestigious, high-goal Arthur
Lucas Cup at Beaufort Polo Club. Rekindling our relationship with that great
English polo family, twenty five years after Arthur Lucas’s grandson captained
the J&B team to victory. (Again, a short video of that 2016 tournament is
also on the Polo section of our website.) On more serious notes, we
passionately continue our involvement in conservation and ecology, an area we
first became involved in many years ago with the Care for the Rare programme in
Africa. We remain proudly involved with Tusk Trust, and more recently 2016 saw
us become involved in an important ecological project much closer to home – the
visionary Garden Bridge concept across the Thames.
We start the New Year with a lot to reflect on. This
business has always tried to be an example of the power and importance of
personal, meaningful relationships. Many forged over lifetimes. Both with the
growers we so proudly represent, and also with our customers who enjoy drinking
their wines. In this hectic, ever-changing world, true, meaningful luxury is
increasingly becoming something that simple.
- Chadwick Delaney, Managing Director of Justerini & Brooks