The Buyer | Ramón Bilbao & Mar de Frades look to Jascots for premium wine sales

Family-owned Zamora Company was first established in 1946, and is a leading owner of Spanish premium wines with a presence in over 80 countries. Its portfolio includes Ramón Bilbao which has just celebrated its 100th anniversary and is renowned for its Rioja; Mar de Frades, a big name in DO Rías Baixas which produces world-beating Albariño under the stewardship of winemaker Paula Fandino, as well as Cruz de Alba in Ribera del Duero.

Last year Zamora Company made the decision to switch its UK distribution to Freixenet Copestick, parent company of specialist on-trade distributor Jascots Wine Merchants.

Jeremy Rockett says Zamora Company took its time to find the right UK partner that was both strong in the off-trade as well as the on-trade and delighted to be now working with Freixenet Copestick

Jeremy Rockett explains why: “We wanted to be with a company that would manage the off-trade well, and of course the on-trade remains incredibly important to us,” he says. “So I started looking round, and as a brand owner what you’re looking for is someone with the right capabilities, but also – could I go and have a beer with these people? Because you want to work with people that you like and respect, because sometimes you do have to have difficult conversations – and you need to be able to have those conversations and then park them and move on.”

Rockett points out that it was a real challenge to find a distributor who didn’t already have a very strong Rioja brand in its portfolio, who was also able to manage the off-trade, and with a good foothold in the on-trade too.

Step forwards Freixenet Copestick and Jascots.

“Freixenet Copestick was the ideal company because it’s very good in the off-trade, and they were looking to fill a gap around premium, branded still wines. They clearly have an excellent range of sparkling, top to bottom, but they had this space and strategically wanted to work with premium still wine brands,” adds Rockett.

“Along with Frexienet Copestick comes Jascots which is brilliant for us because we’ve got a lovely portfolio of more premium wines and we wanted to find the right market for them. Jascots, being fine wine merchants supplying the premium on-trade were an absolutely perfect fit.”

Head of Jascots Miles Platt is equally enthusiastic about the partnership. “With producers the size of Ramón Bilbao and Mar de Frades, it’s great to have people who are based in the UK who can complement our sales team and work with them on opportunities and tastings, and can come and talk with expertise and passion about the product,” he says.

Zamora also has a UK-based brand ambassador, Carolina Jaen, who works closely with the Jascots team, providing support with training, events, tastings, dinners, and is “100% focused” on Jascots business.

Shared goals

The fact that the two companies also have closely aligned goals is another factor which contributes towards a successful working relationship.

“Zamora Company’s portfolio fits really well with ours, it’s really complimentary,” confirms Platt.

So what is it about Ramón Bilbao and Mar de Frades that make their wines well suited to the UK market?

Rockett explains: “Rioja is huge in the UK, and we are very, very big in Spain. That doesn’t necessarily translate into the UK, but we do have big ambitions here. People in the UK market are interested in wine and understand it, and are very receptive to new ideas – certainly that’s the case with Jascots’ customers.”

He adds: “As a company I think we are very good at innovation, with a lot of changes going on at the moment. We’ve been bringing single vineyard and high altitude wines to the market for a while now. Of course, we also produce ‘traditional’ Rioja, but for a long time we’ve been looking to high altitude for sustainability reasons, and a big focus now is unusual or ‘forgotten’ grape varieties, and also looking at ageing in concrete - there’s some real innovation going on.”

These are not wines that you can pile on a supermarket shelf and sell, he adds, but need to be hand-sold by a knowledgeable and passionate team who really know what they are talking about.

This has been helped in no small part by the Zamora Company and Jascots teams spending a lot of time together, on joint vineyard trips and with winemakers visiting the UK doing tastings.

“The [Jascots] team is clearly passionate about wine and understands it,” says Rockett.

Platt believes Jascots has a responsibility as a supplier and distributor to sell interesting wines.

“I think that’s really important for the future of the industry. If we only sold what category insight tells us that people want to buy, it would be a very fast and rapid race to the bottom for us,” he says.

Jascots is based in London, with most of its clients in the capital and the south-east. “We do distribute further, and we certainly have pockets of business further afield, such as in Bristol and down on the south coast. London is a focus, and we are lucky to be here because there’s a sort of unending appetite for things that are new and interesting here.”

Which is where Ramón Bilbao’s ground-breaking wines can really shine, according to Rockett.

Climate change, he says, has meant increasing experimentation with higher altitude vineyards, which is producing fresher, fruity wines which is what the market is now demanding.

“When our head winemaker Rodolfo [Bastida] joined the company 25 years ago this is something he wanted to emphasise – the focus on freshness and fruit.”

Ten years ago, Ramón Bilbao set up a new project, an experimental winery, next to its headquarters in Haro.

“They do a lot of experimentation for the group here - not just Rioja, because we’ve got wineries in Rias Baixas as well as Rueda and Ribera. This winery is our centre of operations for experimenting with different ageing techniques - in amphora, in concrete, in granite and also obviously in barrels. We are also doing a lot of work with yeast, so we’re constantly trying to push the boundaries and find different and better ways of doing things.”

Value still matters

As well as an endless thirst for all things new, another big issue for the UK on-trade is quality and value.

“It’s definitely still important,” says Platt. “Maybe that’s tied into innovation in some ways. We’ve got to look for different regions, different grape varieties, things that are new that maybe provide slightly better value. I think the variety of sweet spots that people can sell by the glass and affordably by the bottle, I think these things will always be really important.”

That sweet spot, certainly outside London, is around the £35 mark, while within the capital that rises to between £35 - £50 where, Platt says, “there’s a lot of good wine to be found.”

Old fashioned service
Service too, is something else which the UK on-trade holds in high regard.
“I may be old fashioned in this respect, but I do believe that service is what the on-trade wants,” continues Platt. “The on-trade want their wine, what they ordered for the price they agreed, turning up when they expect it, and that’s a really important part of what we do. We take it very seriously and it’s a vital part of our offering.”
While Jascots’ focus is firmly on the on-trade, Platt points out that the type of outlet it supplies is more varied than ever.
“There are just so many different types of businesses we serve, from traditional fine dining restaurants, to gastropubs, bars and wet-led pubs – the variety is extraordinary. And of course, different types of places are looking for different things from us. Some customers are into the natural wine movement, for example, while a big percentage of our customers are those who specialise in fine dining.”
However, even within that latter sector, Platt says that customers are increasingly looking for something a bit less mainstream. “It’s not all about the traditional wine regions anymore, restaurant goers are increasingly prepared to try wines from other countries and other varieties which I believe is something that’s changed in the past five years or so.”

Rockett agrees customers are looking more for something out of the ordinary, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis when the on-trade is always hard hit.

“People tend to eat at home and drink a better bottle for less money, but when they do go out they want an unforgettable experience - there’s that feeling that if I’m going to spend my hard-earned cash then I don’t want an average meal with an average bottle of wine - I want something really special. And it doesn’t need to be expensive, it just needs to be different. And that’s what happens when you get innovation within the on-trade. Out of adversity often comes new ideas.”

Big changes

While the Spanish wine sector as a whole used to be viewed as fairly entry-level, according to Rockett, he describes today’s attitude as “pretty schizophrenic”.

“We have Rioja on one hand, which is probably the only DO that most consumers have heard of, which is very solid and a bit old fashioned now, but very well regarded, and it sells at some reasonably premium prices. And I do think in the past there’s been this image that the rest of Spain is quite basic, but that is changing quite quickly.”

He points to the changes happening in Rioja where the DO is now allowing new grape varieties to be cultivated, and in Rueda permitting the names of the villages and vineyards to be represented on the labels.

“All of this is driving innovation and interest, which is making Spain much more interesting. It should probably have happened before, but strict DO rules do sometimes stifle innovation. There are some wineries that have stepped outside their DO because they wanted to break the rules and they have done so very successfully. Of course, you’ve still got to maintain standards at the same time.”

The rules and regulations dictated by the DO don’t always guarantee quality, says Rockett, which can create confusion amongst consumers.

“Just because a wine says Grand Reserva on the label doesn’t mean it’s high quality – it just means its been in a barrel for a certain length of time. But consumers all too often assume that ageing means good.”

The general improvement in European winemaking standards along with the technological advances made in the past 20 years means that more regions than ever are now able to make really good wine, according to Platt.

“The sightly new wave Rioja winemakers who started making an appearance 10 or 15 years ago, have made a massive impact, and it’s not just the big names – it’s all kinds of people making wine, even buying derelict vines, bush vines and resurrecting them and finding out that they are actually amazing.”

Climate impact

Climate change has had a big impact on the region, not just in the way the grapes are grown, at higher altitudes and on cooler, north facing slopes, as well as the use of canopy management to shade the grapes, but also in the varietals that are being produced.

“Garnacha in particular works well at higher altitudes and is a grape that’s a big focus for us from a sustainability point of view,” says Rockett.

“Indeed, one of Ramón Bilbao’s top wines, Finca Lalinde is a rosé produced from old Garnacha vines halfway up Monte Yerga in Rioja Oriental.This is a really high-quality rosé produced from an old vineyard set at a high altitude in the hot part of Rioja,” says Rockett. “But when you go there you need a coat because it’s north-facing and freezing.”

Future plans

As to the future, Rockett says he would like to build on the early success the partnership has enjoyed to date.

“Sales have been pretty solid in the UK and we have already seen an increase since moving over to Freixenet Copestick. It’s quite early days at the moment, as we’ve only been working together since last September, and you don’t get much new distribution in that last quarter, but I’d like to see the on-trade build further,” he says.

He also hopes to see growth in the off-trade too, which he notes accounts for around 90% of the UK market. “We are looking to optimise our portfolio in the UK.”

Platt adds: “I am dying to get going with the wines – I think they are fantastic, but I’m a particular fan of Mar de Frades. I think sometimes when a wine has more of a brand profile that people can be a little bit suspicious of it in the on-trade, there’s even an element of snobbery, but that has changed hugely, with Covid probably helping to break down those walls a little. But as soon as people taste the wine actually they realise it’s serious stuff, and the reception to the wines so far has been really good.”

* You can find out more about Jascots at its website here.

* You can find out more about Ramon Bilbao here.

* Ramón Bilbao is a commercial partner to The Buyer. You can find out out mroe about the business here.