Figs raise a glass to FINE + RARE

Congratulations are due to one of our favourite clients, FINE + RARE. The specialist Fine Wine broker have been chosen as the winners of the prestigious Queen's award for Enterprise in International Trade.

This prestigious award follows a significant drive to grow FINE+RARE’s international sales, which now span over 63 countries around the world. As a result, they have seen their international trade division increase exports by 153% over the past three years, with international sales representing 68% of the £53 million of overall sales for the year to 31 December 2010.

Mark Bedini, Chief Executive Officer of FINE+RARE commented: “Winning the Queens Award for International Trade is testament to the tremendous work that our team has done over the last three years in broadening our international customer base and creating the best wine trading platform in the world.”

Fine+Rare launched the first European website dedicated to fine wine in 1996 and went on to develop “WineDesk” - a proprietary trading platform which constantly updates prices and availability on over 34,000 wines which can be bought and sold through a team of over 20 wine brokers based at its headquarters in London.

In 2010, the company executed over 17,000 transactions for its customers buying and selling around 50,000 cases of fine wines to customers all over the world. The average price of a bottle of wine sold by FINE+RARE increased from £36 in 2004 to in excess of £94 in 2010.

Bedini continued: “We have a long-term strategy to further develop the Asian Markets with China now a significant buyer and to meet growing demand from newer markets such as India and Brazil. Increasing sales in Europe and signs of recovery in the US mean we will continue to drive our sales efforts into all markets confident of achieving further and continuing export growth on top of our very strong domestic results.”