Sean Welsh seems to understand what his customers want better than they do themselves. And when it comes to eating and drinking on the premises, they tend to get what they’re Given. But fifteen years of serving his East Yorkshire town has taught him to trust his instincts – and his customers to trust him. By Nigel Huddleston

The East Yorkshire town of Howden flies a little bit under the radar. If you know the name at all, it’s most likely from the kitchen company that originated there. But, as the sign on the way in from the M62 says, it’s an historic town. 

It’s been home to Barnes Wallis, creator of the bouncing bomb, and Neville Shute, the Australian novelist. For a brief time after the First World War, it was the location of Britain’s biggest airship base. 

The 14th century minster, in what was the medieval capital of the region, looks down over a collection of independent traders who’ve only relatively recently begun to see the benefits of tourism that has historically been the preserve of more illustrative regional centres such as Beverley, Hull and York. 

Among those indies, you’ll find within a few yards of each other a trio that encapsulate modern drinks retailing. 

The Spirit Specialist, owned by Ben Bowers, opened three years ago, and is not to be confused with The Spirit of Howden, a former Bargain Booze that’s retained the value specialist off-licence ethos that’s largely disappeared outside of the big convenience store groups. 

Lee Ruddell’s Hop Cavern is a hip young hybrid craft beer store, and the relative newcomer.

But the one that kicked off this mini indie drinks scene is Flourish & Prosper, Sean and Julie Welsh’s hybrid wine shop that sits straight facing the Bowers business.

It’s a friendly rivalry, says Sean. Although he sells spirits and beer – partly to fuel the drink-in side of his business – both Bowers and Ruddell are customers, and there’s little crossover in product range. Each will gladly point customers in the direction of the others if they know it’s going to lead them to what they really want.

Julie has her own full-time business, so Sean’s day-to-day sidekick in Flourish & Prosper is Gabriella Gyorgy-Hodkin.

“Julie occasionally comes in as a fresh pair of eyes, because you get snowblind,” says Sean. “And because she’s my wife of almost 40 years she will tell me what I need to know. She’s very useful as someone who comes in and sees it differently to how I do.”

Before Flourish & Prosper, Sean worked in the wine trade as a rep for Mentzendorff, and others before that.

“I liked being the northern rep,” he says. “The poor London guys working out of London-based offices would have the directors going out into London accounts and checking up on them.

“They didn’t come near me, which suited my personality. Just leave me alone and I’ll get on with it.

“It suits me being an independent wine merchant. I’m unemployable now. Once you’re self-employed you can’t go back. I earned a lot more money when I worked with Mentzendorff, but it’s fine. I’m happy, I live in a nice village, I’ve got a nice house, a nice shop and lots of friendly customers. It’s a nice life.

“I can’t think of any towns I visited when I was repping that were so full of independents as Howden. We’re like the Hay-on-Wye of the north.”

The shop is divided in two. At the front are cute bistro style tables and the everyday wine range and to the rear top-end stuff and chilled cheese storage. There’s a suntrap courtyard out the back, which extends the hybrid offer in the summer months, and has even hosted a 90-guest wedding reception.

Wines are merchandised by style with film stars such as David Niven, Clark Gable, Katherine Hepburn and, er, the Spice Girls pictured alongside pithy descriptions that describe both the celebrity and the wines underneath.

“I merchandise by style because that’s how people buy wine,” says Sean. “It’s also become a bit of a quiz when customers are sat in the wine bar, trying to work out who they all are.”

You’ve got a colour code for things like organic, biodynamic and vegan wines on the shelves. Are those things important in Howden?

Not a huge amount. We get a few people asking about vegan but it’s not a big thing because this is a farming area. If I started talking vegan to some of my best customers, I’d probably lose them. Around here, vegans are just fussy eaters.

You start talking organics and biodynamics to them and they just say, “I’m a farmer, love, I spray everything”. You have to talk to who you’ve got, and the best customers are farmers. They’ve got the money. This is David Davies territory. Everyone hates the Tories this year, but he still got an 18,000 majority. It didn’t waver. It’s solidly Tory.

Does retail dominate for you?

Retail’s the biggest part at around 40%. Wholesale’s probably 20% and the drink-in the rest – and a bit of internet. That’s not something I’m particularly keen on because the margin’s so tight on web sales. You can’t insure it and if you send it and it gets broken you lose that money. And people don’t like paying delivery charges, so you end up in a situation where it’s just not worth it. We do a little bit.

My sister-in-law lives in Bristol. We get her and her mates to buy wine from us and we send it down en masse to her and they collect it from her house. We save a load of delivery charges because it’s one delivery to one place, and they like it. Every couple of months we get a nice big order out of them.

You’ve got a vinyl record player, so it looks like the hybrid element is very bedded in.

It’s new made to look vintage, so it plays CDs as well. I got that so I could encourage customers to bring their own vinyl in and they can DJ. It’s just a bit of fun and adds to the atmosphere. The customer base is slightly older, over 40, so they like blues.

We decorate the place with eclectic furniture. There’s a woman who lives round the corner who used to work for Liberty [the chic London department store, not the wine supplier], who’s very good at upholstering, so she did some lovely oak chairs for us. 

What’s the drink-in offer like?

There is no wine list. If you can see it, you can drink it. There’s a corkage [£1 on beer, £7.95 on a bottle of wine]. They don’t get to choose what cheese they have on a cheeseboard. We do that. Most of them don’t get to choose what wine they’re drinking, beyond red or white. It’s a benevolent dictatorship. They’re tired, they’ve had a long week at work, they can’t make a decision. “Right, I know what you like, you’re having that”, and I just give them it. It’s become a standard joke: “Don’t bother choosing what you want; he’ll just give you what he wants to get rid of.”

Is it what you want to get rid of?

Sometimes there’s stock I want to move but it’s a more thoughtful process than that. I’m not just going to dump a bottle of wine on someone. I know their tastes. Lots of my customers are regulars. They might think, “he’s a pain in the arse, but he never picks anything we don’t like”. New people come in and the regulars say “don’t bother choosing, he’ll choose for you”. 

An unusual element of the business is the holiday let above the shop.

I manage it but it’s the landlord’s. Julie’s business is a cleaning company, so she does that and I just make sure they’re happy and deal with any problems and get paid a commission.

I’ve got a very good landlord. The original lease [for the shop] ran out and we just do it on a handshake now, on the same terms with annual increases. The original idea was to have tenants upstairs but I didn’t like that because I’d have to share the outside space. If you get good tenants it’s fine, but if you’ve got bad ones you’re stuck with them for six months driving you mad. So I persuaded the landlord to do this to a high standard. It’s luxury. It turns over enough that we both get more money from it than we would from renting it out. And quite often the guests will come downstairs and buy a bottle of wine or some cheese.

Why choose Flourish & Prosper as a name?

We were around the corner in an even older building when we first started. Because it was an old building we were going through different words we could use. When we first started we were more of a full-on deli than we are now, so it didn’t have to say “wine shop” per se. Supermarkets have taken that deli business away, so we reduced that. The name felt right for that old building – and it’s a bit of a mission statement.

Some people can’t remember the name. They call us Prosper & Flourish or Porridge & Doodah. But after 15 years we’re established and people do know we’re here in their town.

I didn’t want to be the Howden Wine Shop, because if I had wanted to expand and open in Pocklington or one of the other market towns, the name’s stuck with the town. And I didn’t want to do yet another pun on the wine trade. I felt they’d been done to death.

Do you have any particular strengths in wine?

We’re probably strongest in Spain and Portugal. Obviously, in New Zealand we’ve got a fair few Sauvignon Blancs because they’re popular. We do a bit of South Africa and we always have a lot of classic French because we have to.

We’re probably weakest in Australia. Partly because I’m not the world’s biggest fan, and Australia – and Chile – have been done to death in the supermarkets, and I can’t compete with those. We will do better-end Australia but we don’t do everyday stuff. 

What’s your approach to buying?

I always try to buy with a few of my customers in my head. I don’t always buy things I personally like but they’re a good example of that style of wine. I know Brian’ll like that, so I buy it for Brian. Or for Laura or whoever. The range gets formed by my customer base – what they like and are looking for. 

We’ve got a wine club, so every month we supply about 30 customers with a mixed case of wines. They’re very loyal to that but every month you’ve got to find some new wines, so the range does roll slightly. We don’t throw the baby out with the bath water; we don’t throw out all the big-sellers but it does allow us to experiment with things.

Which are the main suppliers on your radar?

We were a member of Vindependents for a couple of years through Covid and that was very helpful at the time. The quality was good but the buying and shipping, and trying to guess so far in advance what you’d need … I just got it wrong. 

Like everybody else, we use Boutinot. They’re great: they’ve got some really good value stuff and entry-level stuff. We use Liberty, Richmond Wine Agencies, Mentzendorff and Delibo – and recently we started working with Daniel Lambert.

Boutinot have a strong product range that works with indies. They do it at really competitive price points and the wines are well-packaged and good wines, so they sell. And they’re very decent to deal with. When we’ve had cash flow problems – which over 15 years you do at times – they’ve always been reasonable and held our hand through it. All those things that make you a good supplier. 

During Covid I went for two years without seeing a rep from many companies, or them picking up a phone to call us. I thought it was really poor. Those companies then came back. Sorry, you’ve abandoned us at the worst time for the trade, and you’ve got no idea how we got through this, and you think because you send me a few samples I might buy some off you. Naaah!

What constitutes entry-level for you?

It’s £10 upwards nowadays. One of the things that irks me is we get emails from suppliers saying you could sell this wine for 32%. We can’t live off 32%. It was 32% 15 years ago when I was working for Mentzendorff. Wages have gone up a hell of a lot since then. There’s no money in that unless you’re a big boy who can really churn the stuff. 

What does it needs to be?

40%. 36% minimum. One of the joys of Vindependents is that you have to work off 40%; it’s part of the deal and you’re not allowed to go online and undersell that. It was one of the reasons we were in it, because it helped us for a while.

I used to pay above the odds when we first started to get good staff. Now, I’m struggling to pay the minimum wage because it’s gone to such a high level and is going up again. It’s easy for the government – “aren’t we good, we’re going to put the minimum wage up” – but the government isn’t paying it, muggins here is. 

We’ve got to have bigger margins. That’s why we’re still here. That’s why we do the hybrid model, because it gives us better margins. It pads out some of the other stuff.

That’s why we do less and less wholesaling, because we just can’t afford it. But I’ve got a young rep who I recently took on to look after prestige accounts and private customers. You like to give a young lad a chance, don’t you? I’ve known him a couple of years; he’s turning 82 this month. Otto Hinderer MS. 

What role do events play for you?

We tend to do tastings on Thursday nights because it’s slightly quieter but close enough to the weekend that people aren’t too worried about it being a school night. People don’t want to do a tasting on a Friday night or a Saturday night because they’re busy with other things. Tuesdays and Wednesdays don’t work because they’re too early in the week.

We’re going to do something more informal, just a bloody good night out. When we do them now, I take them through the wines and they have to shut up for a few minutes while I do a spiel. I quite like the idea of going “here you go: here’s some wine and here’s some nibbles”, but without the grumpy old man giving them a lecture.

You offer a 100% “no ifs, no buts” money-back guarantee, if someone doesn’t like a wine. It was something Thresher offered and people thought they were mad because customers would abuse it. How has that worked for you?

It was something a marketing bod told us to do a few years ago. It’s worth doing because I don’t want to lose customers. If people come in and say, “I really didn’t like that or I think it was off”, we never argue. We had someone the other day do it. It doesn’t happen a great deal, but it reassures them. The supermarkets will give you your money back if you complain, so why wouldn’t we? You’ve got to compete in that world. 

We do it with the wine club. If we send them wines that I’ve picked and they don’t like them I’ll happily swap them for something they do like. It very rarely happens because I know the customer base and I’m putting stuff in there that I know they’ll like. 

The wine club is intended to pull them out of their comfort zone into other areas. Instead of Marlborough Sauvignon or Pinot Grigio we’ll put in a Gavi or a Vinho Verde or something. We’re making them try something they wouldn’t necessarily pick off the shelf otherwise.

After 15 years, what’s your favourite thing about being an independent wine merchant?

The customers. I’ve formed some great friendships; a lot of them are good mates.

And the worst thing?

The customers! No, probably the council and the bureaucratic rubbish you have to deal with. East Yorkshire County Council decided in their wisdom that they wanted to pedestrianise the street: “It will be grand – there’ll be tables and chairs outside and it will be all very European”. But with all these parking spaces we have, people come in from the villages around and drop and shop. They can park for an hour, grab what they need from the shops and go on. What they don’t want is to be told they can park all the way over there and they can’t get access to the shops. 

In Goole, which is the closest town with bigger retailers, they pedestrianised the centre and most of the shops closed. I fought tooth and nail against it in Howden and eventually it got dropped. It would have killed the town. 

The county council ignored the town for years but suddenly decided they liked us because of the new housing. They sent guys with ponytails and lanyards and hi-vis jackets to organise a food festival, using a European grant before it all disappeared. 

I bristle at hi-vis and lanyards. They closed the high street and put stalls out there. Right outside there was someone selling cheese, and a bit further along one selling cheese and wine, and then another selling cheese. And this was supposed to help the high street. I sell cheese and wine!