Nish Patel, owner and founder of Shenfield Wine Co. talks about why this milestone is so important to him and what made the business what it is today…

November 2026 marks 20 years in business for Shenfield Wine Co! Twenty years. It’s a long time, and when I look back to where we started, it’s quite remarkable to see how far we’ve come.

Back in 2006, when I took over the former Unwins store, I had zero wine knowledge…but stacks of enthusiasm! The interim owners had reopened the shop and filled the shelves from top to bottom with supermarket brands, most of them priced at £4.99.

It was clear things had to change.

For the first 18 months, I immersed myself in wine: reading, tasting, asking questions and, most importantly, talking to people who knew far more about it than I did.

Then, one day, a sales rep walked through the door and everything changed.

Ian from Ehrmann Wines opened my eyes to what was possible. He introduced me to the world of specialist wine, sourcing wines from producers around the world through specialist distributors rather than simply buying what was readily available from local wholesalers stocking supermarket wine. That was the real beginning of the real journey for Shenfield Wine Co.

 

 

The people behind the bottles

One thing I’ve come to appreciate enormously over the years is just how important good sales reps are to a business like ours. A great sales rep is priceless. The good ones don’t simply walk through the door with a price list and ask what you’d like to buy. They know their producers, understand their wines and, most importantly, understand their customers.

They bring ideas, introduce us to something we’ve never seen before, tell us about a producer worth taking a chance on and sometimes open the door to an entirely new category. Some of the best buying decisions we’ve made over the years have started with a conversation with a rep!

Of course, there are good reps and then there are great reps.

The great ones become part of the business. They understand what we’re trying to achieve and know that we’re not interested in simply filling shelves. We’re looking for interesting products, good producers and great stories. Provenance is important to our customers, and it’s important to us.

Those relationships have been hugely important to us over the last 20 years, and they’re something I genuinely value.

Building something different

I started attending more and more wine tastings, meeting specialist importers and discovering producers and wines that I simply hadn’t known existed.

Slowly, we began building something different: a curated list of wines that you couldn’t just pick up in the multiples.

 

 

One of the milestones along the way was our first Annual Wine Tasting in the Parish Hall. At the time, no one locally was really doing anything like it. It was a bit of a leap of faith, but it captured exactly what we were trying to create: somewhere people could discover wines, meet the people behind them and enjoy the experience rather than simply coming into a shop to buy a bottle. It became an important part of what we do and helped establish Shenfield Wine Co. as something different.

Another milestone was changing the signage and branding of the business. It might sound like a small thing, but it represented a much bigger change in how we saw ourselves. We were no longer simply the shop that had taken over the old Unwins premises. We had developed our own identity, our own personality and our own direction.

And the business continued to grow.

 

And then came Covid…

Then, of course, there was Covid.

Nobody could have predicted what was about to happen. The pandemic brought enormous challenges for businesses everywhere, and there were some incredibly difficult moments. But, strangely enough, Covid became one of our best periods of trading. We did everything we could to maintain a service for our customers. We launched a website within 24 hours. Mind you, it only had one page, but it allowed people to find us! Our daily delivery service started on day two of Covid.

With people staying at home, entertaining themselves and unable to go out to restaurants and pubs, customers turned to their local businesses in a way we hadn’t seen before.

We were incredibly fortunate to have such a loyal customer base.

People supported us, trusted us and continued to shop with us when they could have easily bought elsewhere. It was an extraordinary time, and one we’ll certainly never forget.

Twenty years of change

Of course, a lot has changed over those 20 years.

Back in the early days, we regularly sold Champagne by the case. I don’t think those days are going to return anytime soon! Then came the explosion of craft beer, followed by the incredible rise of gin. Both completely transformed their respective categories and opened up a whole new world of choice for customers.

Whisky was another story…

As someone who never drank whisky, it was a little daunting when the rep walked through the door with samples in tow! But it was a category I knew we had to embrace. I could see that it was an important category and one that we needed to understand. Fast forward to today and our whisky selection has grown to more than 120 bottles. Not bad for someone who once knew very little about spirits!

And of course there were the cigars, too…

The introduction of our bespoke humidor was another genuine game changer.

Cigar sales had been bubbling away steadily for a few years, but the humidor transformed the category for us. Sales exploded beyond anything we could have expected and, ultimately, that success led to the opening of The Cigar Lounge – a project that took two years of planning and preparation to bring to life. Looking back, it was another example of why you can’t simply stand still. You have to be prepared to try something new and, sometimes, take a risk.

The customers

And that brings me to one of the things I value most about the last 20 years: the people.

Some customers have been coming through our doors for almost the entire journey. That’s something I’m incredibly proud of.

Over time, the relationship changes. They’re not simply customers anymore. They’re people you know. You know what they like, what they don’t like, what they bought last Christmas and sometimes even what they’re having for dinner that evening! It’s still great when someone who’s been coming in for years walks through the door and says: “What would you recommend?”  They trust us to find something they’ll enjoy, and that trust means an enormous amount.

Some customers really have become more like friends than clients. Seeing familiar faces still popping in after all these years is one of the things that makes the long hours, the hard work and all the challenges worthwhile.

 

Looking ahead

Twenty years on, what started as a former Unwins shop with shelves full of £4.99 supermarket wine has evolved into something I could never have imagined when I first walked through the door in 2006.

There have been plenty of milestones along the way: the first Annual Wine Tasting, the new branding and signage, discovering more incredible wine and their importers, navigating Covid, the explosion of craft beer and gin, building a whisky range of more than 120 bottles, the humidor and The Cigar Lounge.

But ultimately, the story isn’t really about the products…

It’s about people.

The producers who make the wines.

The importers who bring them to us.

The sales reps who introduce us to something new.

The staff who help keep everything moving.

And, above all, the customers who have supported us year after year.

Twenty years ago, I knew very little about wine. What I did have was enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. I’ve been lucky enough to learn from some incredibly knowledgeable people along the way, and I’m still learning today.

You’d probably think that after 20 years there wouldn’t be much more to do. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that you just can’t stand still. There are always new producers to discover, new wines to taste, new products to explore, new projects to get going and new people to meet. So we’re going to take a moment to celebrate 20 years, but we’re certainly not looking backwards for too long.

And to all our customers: those who’ve been with us since 2006, those who’ve discovered us more recently, and everyone in between…thank you.

You’ve helped make Shenfield Wine Co. what it is today.

Here’s to the next 20 years…cheers!