History

Hicks & Don was founded in 1966 by Ronnie Hicks and Robin Don, two Masters of Wine, who for some years worked together on the wine buying committee of John Harvey & Sons Ltd. of Bristol, under the tutelage of wine trade legends, Harry Waugh and F.G.Cox..

In the late 'sixties, Hicks & Don can claim to have pioneered the now widespread concept of selling wine by the case for laying down "En Primeur" (at opening prices) or "Ex Cellars", while it was still lying abroad maturing in cask. At the time, this really was a cutting edge concept and they can still remember selling hogsheads of Pétrus 1966 at prices that would now seem unreal! Today Hicks & Don's Ex Cellars offers continue to provide customers with carefully chosen wines and remarkable value for money, from Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhône, South of France, Italy, Spain, Germany and even Chile. Some customers have been stocking their cellars this way for forty years.

While at Hicks & Don we do not claim to have the most extensive wine list in the business, we do claim to have one of the most carefully selected. We are not swayed by fashionable names or "buzz wines" and we have never been interested in selling labels at the lowest prices. Our aim is to ensure that what is inside the bottle offers good value for money. We do not sell basic "plonk", where the glass bottle, the cork and the capsule cost more than the wine. The supermarkets have to have volume before they can buy anything: we can buy good value from the best of the smaller growers and this is how we compete .

Anthony Barne MW joined the Hicks & Don buying team in the 1980s and so with three Masters of Wine selecting only the best value wines on your behalf, we aim to take the risk out of buying wine: a customer needs to trust his or her wine merchant.

Jamie MacKenzie-Charrington is now Managing Director of Hicks & Don, having bought the business in 2008. Coming from a family with a long history in brewing, it was inevitable that he would find himself in the drinks industry. With around 20 years' experience in tasting and sales, Jamie runs the day to day business, supported by Office Manager Julie Hawes, Finance Manager Marie Brichard-Parsons and Warehouse Manager Stephen Melville.