Just a few weeks after a less-than-glowing review of their wine selection by Tim Atkin the Observer following its acquisition a year or so ago by French owners Castel, we hear that the chain has now been sold to UK-based, and rather small outfit, www.excellar.co.uk.
This is probably good news, as Castel seemed less than committed to the rather original and “quirky” approach which characterised Oddbins in the past, and which won it many awards and accolades for the quality and range of its wines, the knowledge and enthusiasm of its staff and its exciting printed wine lists based on Ralph Steadman cartoons. And, although I think French wines can be great, the French owners tended to populate the list with more French wines, some of them of rather doubtful quality.
So it is to be hoped that ExCellar will be able to reinvigorate the business and bring some vibrancy back into a major UK wine merchant chain. The good news is that one of the people behind ExCellar is Simon Baille, one of the founders of Oddbins. The only concern has to be that ExCellar is a much smaller business than Oddbins, so can they cope with the change of scale – and the website for ExCellar is really not exciting or easy to use. Good Luck to them – we need some excitement in this part of the market which serves both casual and serious winelovers!
I think Castel bought Oddbins in 2001. And Simon Baille’s father was involved in the original Oddbins dynamic and fun and innovative style rather than Simon himself.
I really hope that Simon succeeds in his goals. He is a switched on retailer and I hope his undoubted enthusiasm transfers to the Oddbins set up. It would be great to have a proper, well run high street chain keeping UK wine retail buzzing again.
Cheers
Hamish
http://www.bellawines.co.uk