Majestic Wine is the United Kingdom's largest specialist retailer of wine. The company employs over 1,000 expert staff nationwide, with two hundred stores in the United Kingdom, and two in France.
Early history
Majestic Vintners was founded by Sheldon Graner in 1980. Prior to Majestic Vinters, Graner gained worked as a merchandiser with the John Lewis group. The initial design logo for the company was based on a definitive set of King George V postage stamps of 1929. During the 1970s, laws regarding selling alcohol were restrictive in the United Kingdom. Majestic Vinters offered wine tastings and sold it by the case to comply with the laws. Graner opened his first wine warehouse in Harringay, North London, in 1980, under the management of Tony Mason, brought in by Graner to manage the day to day activities. The second store was opened in Battersea in May 1981. In the middle of 1981, the group called in receivers. Majestic's assets were bought from the receivers by Giles Clarke. In August 1987, Majestic acquired Liquor Barn, a chain of 104 stores in California and Arizona. Following the disposal of the business based in America, Majestic Wine was sold for £15 million to investors in 1989. Clarke went on to work for Pet City. In 1986, Mason set up Wizard Wine under the same concept, which in 1987 was purchased by retailer Bejam. After Bejam was purchased by rival Iceland in January 1989, Mason and partners John Apthorp and Tim How bought Wizard Wine from the heavily indebted Iceland. In September 1991, Wizard Wine purchased Majestic Wine PLC in a leveraged buyout, and merged under the Majestic Wine Warehouses brand as a private company. Headquartered in Watford, Hertfordshire, under the leadership of Tim How, Majestic Wine became a public company in 1996, floating on the Alternative Investment Market.
Development and expansion
April 2000 – Majestic.co.uk launched, offering customers an online service.
October 2001 – Majestic acquired Les Celliers de Calais, whose business was based around the British cross channel trade. Rebranded initially as Wine & Beer World, and since 2013 as Majestic Wine Calais, there are now two stores in Calais and Coquelles following the closures of branches in Le Havre and Cherbourg.
July 2003 – Majestic opened their first temperature controlled fine wine centre at St. John's Wood store.
October 2005 – Launched Gift Solutions, an online service designed to allow customers to send gifts of less than twelve bottles. The company's 13th consecutive annual rise in turnover was recorded, with profits of £13.2m.
March 2009 – Majestic acquired the privately owned companies: Lay & Wheeler Ltd, WBI Ltd and Vinotheque Holdings Ltd as the fine wine specialist arm of Majestic Wine plc.
June 2009 – Majestic published company report stating that the administrative costs had increased by £6 million from £10 million, head office staffing increased by 10%. Store staffing increased by a little over 1%. The increase in store numbers means that the store staffing increase is actually a real terms decrease.
September 2009 – Majestic reduced its in store minimum purchase from twelve bottles to six bottles.
June 2012 – The minimum purchase for online orders and deliveries reduced from twelve to six bottles.
February 2015 – Majestic announced the departure of chief executive Steve Lewis.
April 2015 – Majestic acquired Naked Wines for up to £70 million, and appointed Naked's founder Rowan Gormley as chief executive.
December 2019 – Majestic Wine is sold to investment firm of the United States, Fortress, for £95m. The business announces all stores will remain open under the new ownership, and the return of chief executive John Colley.
May 2020 – Majestic Wine has confirmed a major extension of its relationship with Deliveroo in the United Kingdom, promising further distribution choices attributable to COVID 19 for people living at home.
June 2020 - Majestic Wine has hired a performance marketing agency, Journey Further in addition to offering strategic performance marketing support to help drive online and offline revenues.
Today
Majestic Wine Warehouses operates as a wine retailer, selling a mixture of wine, champagne and spirits. Majestic's stores offer customers free tasting, free delivery and free glass hire. Majestic Wine currently has 211 stores in the United Kingdom. Its chief executive is John Colley. In June 2016, Majestic Wine announced a double digit sales boost since the purchase of Naked Wines. In March 2019, Majestic announced that the business would be restructured. Majestic Wines PLC was to be renamed to Naked Wines. As part of these changes, the 'Majestic' business were sold to private equity firm Fortress for £100m in August 2019. The retailer now operates as a private company.
