Goodbye Thresher's

Now let's have some exciting LOCAL wine shops on the high street

The news this weekend that the UK wine merchants Threshers has gone into administration must surely come as little surprise to many people who, if they had any sense, found that their whole 3 for 2 concept was not really the bargain it seemed to be. Not only that but surely it was commercially unsustainable when many UK supermarkets were able to offer even more exciting wines at even more exciting prices.

According to the official administrators KPMG, they have been deluged with offers by various companies eager to grab either part of all of Thresher's massive UK estate of wine shops. My only hope is that KPMG adopts an enlightened approach and sees this as the chance to offer up the UK wide network to financially robust wine retailers who can finally bring us something imaginative to the UK high street.

In my dreams I'd like to see a network of UK wine shops that have a very local appeal but also respect the fact that many more people in the UK know about the wines they like than they did 20 or 30 years ago. We're all now far better informed and we all know what we like - so new wine shops need to reflect this - and give us the chance to have tasting sessions or club evenings. After all, where there's a decent wine, there's often a decent conversation.

In my opinion, where Threshers failed was in trying to offer the widest selection of wines from all over the world (which in many small retail spaces simply isn't possible) regardless of location or local demographic. My approach would be to have stores that celebrated new and exciting wines across all price ranges, from the traditional to the very modern, with each store reflecting (or trying to) the social and economic demographic of the area.

Alternatively, I can only hope that in some parts where there currently isn't an Oddbins or a Nicholas, that these start spreading their wings to some of the blank areas of the wine retailing map here in the UK. Let's face it we don't all want to be drinking Turning Leaf and Echo Falls after a hard week in the office.

In my wildest dreams I'd like my local Threshers to be transformed in to an easy going wine warehouse-style outlet offering traditional wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alscace and Languedoc - along with New World offerings from Aussie, New Zealand, California and South America. The idea would be to give buyers the chance to taste new and exciting wines and buy stuff by the bottle, the crate or the lorry load. In my dreams indeed.

In the meantime, cheers to Thresher's and all their dedicated staff for doing a pretty decent job in local high streets up and down the country.

Times do change so lets hope some of your friendly and helpful staff will be found behind the counters of your successors.