The story starts in 1972 and Paul Boutinot, having had a brief flirtation with shifting half a tonne of bricks up and down a ladder, decided the glamour of the building industry wasn’t for him.Paul quickly got into something else: wine.After five years learning his trade in London, he headed back up north to Greater Manchester to join his father’s successful restaurant business. Frustrated with the quality of wine that could be sourced in the UK, Paul took matters into his own hands. He hired a van, trundled over to France, picked up some wine (it was legal back then) and sold it back in his parents’ restaurant.
Personally selecting the wines from France, back in the UK he would unload the trailer by hand and deliver the crates of wines to customers himself. But good things grow and by the end of the decade they had become a bigger and better company. A company that not only sought out great wines but made them too.
Today, Boutinot Wines is one of the leading UK-based distributors of quality wines from around the world. The portfolio consists of over 1600 wines and more than 44 million bottles are sold each year.