Tanners
Deep in the heart of Shropshire Tanner’s Wine Merchants has been providing our drops of the good stuff for nearly two centuries now…including supplying the Albright Hussey Manor Patrons for half a century. We are addicted to the new nowadays. Barely before we’ve got our latest smartphone out of the box, and long before we’ve actually worked out how to use to properly, we’re hankering after the next model.
The latest thing, the newest fad, the next big thing – we’ve been conditioned to think that these are the things that tick our boxes. But when you really think about it, you can’t beat something that’s stood the test of time. You can’t argue with something that’s endured the vagaries of history and isn’t just still standing, but is actually thriving in the here and now. Take Tanner’s Wine Merchants.
Queen Victoria had barely been on the throne for two years when Shropshire lad William Tanner went to sea. She still had sixty years to reign when he returned from travelling far foreign, took his brother H. Edward into partnership and founded W & H. E Tanner, wine merchants, in Shrewsbury in 1842. 175 years later, Tanner’s is still here. It’s still family-run, by the fourth generation of the Tanner family to take the reins no less. And it’s still Britain’s pre-eminent independent wine-merchant.
Tanner’s has a string of industry awards and accolades to its name acknowledging this. But nice though it is to have it, the critical acclaim springs from a commitment to quality, service and value that’s as evident today as it was when William Tanner returned from his voyages and first launched the business. Take a simple thing. The company has expanded over the years.
Tanners now has seven outlets and employs 100 people, largely split between its Welsh distribution centre and its headquarters in Shrewsbury. 12 of them have been with the company for more than 30 years. You can’t buy that sort of loyalty – and you certainly can’t buy the sort of service and reputation that can only be built by a core of long-serving staff. Tanner’s service and reputation are traditional in the best sense of the word. It’s backed up by the sort of knowledge that only comes from being in the business for nearly two centuries.
It’s the sort of knowledge that comes from having imported, sourced, and sold everything from wine to butts of sherry; from bottled beer to mineral water; from claret and burgundy from France to rum from Jamaica and Guyana to whisky from Ireland and Scotland over a staggering period of time, but one crucially connected by the family who have steered the business through the choppy waters of history throughout. It’s a name synonymous with quality, which is why Shropshire, England, Britain, and some of the world’s highest-quality restaurants, hotels, and outlets turn to Tanners when it comes to compiling their wine list.
