Coterie Holdings has appointed Andrew Shaw as its wine director less than two months after it also announced the acquisition of specialist importer Hallgarten & Novum Wines.
Shaw, who is set to take up the new role at the beginning of March, was most recently head of trading for beers, wines and spirits at Marks & Spencer (M&S), having joined the retailer in 2021 to help revamp its range.
His appointment comes as Coterie seeks to grow its presence in premium and fine wine in the UK, and follows the arrival of Michael Saunders, another senior industry figure, as CEO.
‘Coterie is an exciting wine business,’ Shaw told Decanter. ‘This is very much the first chapter of what should be a fantastic and exciting wine journey.’
During a career in wine spanning more than two decades, Shaw has previously been the buying manager for wine at Waitrose and buying director at major importer and supplier Bibendum, alongside judging at the Decanter World Wine Awards.
He said his new role represents a great opportunity to work for a wine-focused group with a start-up mentality that also already has meaningful scale.
Alongside its recent acquisition of specialist importer and trade supplier Hallgarten, Coterie has owned fine wine merchant Lay & Wheeler since 2019.
It also owns wine storage space Coterie Vaults, and last month announced a new wine-based lending platform for collectors and restaurants, named Jera.
Coterie described Jera as ‘an online platform for wine collectors and restaurants to borrow using their fine wine as collateral’.
Shaw said, ‘The great advantage with Coterie is its single-minded focus on the quality side of the proposition. It’s very rare to find something that’s both qualitative and scalable.’
Whilst the current environment is generally recognised as a tough period for the UK wine trade, he said the challenge is to engage customers better.
His new role also marks a reunion with Michael Saunders, who he worked with for several years at Bibendum.
Prior to joining Coterie as CEO, Saunders was CEO at Bibendum – a business he first joined in 1983.
