Wineaux Ltd
The Wine Boutique

Our story 

Wineaux was founded in 2005 by two old friends, Barry McCaughley and Ben Hayes. Barry had always had an incredible passion and aptitude for food and wine, and the idea of setting-up a wine business had long been in the back of his mind. With Ben on board, Wineaux was launched on a simple premise: to provide high-quality alternatives to the mass-produced wines on the high street at competitive prices.

No grand plan, we just started selling wine. We had a lock-up in London Bridge and a tremendous amount of goodwill from suppliers. We sought out exceptional wines from small producers destined for the restaurant trade and sold them wherever we could: friends, family, old colleagues, restaurants, shops and events. We still believe that small, quality-focussed producers inevitably create more authentic and better wines than their factory-scale equivalents. In wine, small is almost always better.

Over the past few years this principle has taken us all over the wine-producing world. Having attracted significant capital investment, we now import around 75% of the wines we sell ourselves. Our partners are like-minded producers and investors, people who share our values about what wine should be: an expression of the place it comes from and something to be cherished for its quality, something that can improve life.

We’ve had to learn a lot along the way (about things like shipping, customs and logistics) and the Wineaux team has grown to seven people, four warehouses and an active board. Our corporate clients include the likes of Mitchells & Butlers, All Bar One, Browns, The Ashes 2009, Chepstow race course and over 100 pubs. In addition to supplying bars, restaurants and events, our wine can also be found in London’s leading financial, legal and media agencies. These accounts have allowed us to develop the retail the side of the business (centred upon http://www.wineaux.co.uk) and bring these exceptional wines to the home delivery market, at exceptional prices. Our range includes top class examples of all the major varietals and wine-producing regions, from New World superstars to Old World classics. Wineaux also sells one exceptional beer in Little Creatures Pale Ale.

We’ve come a long way in almost five years, but we still strive to do exactly what we did when we started out: to sell well-priced, high-quality, authentic wines in a UK marketplace saturated by mass-produced plonk.

Simple as that.

Thanks for choosing Wineaux,
Barry and Ben