For three years, Onshore Cellars have been supplying yachts, villas and homes with wines and spirits. They insist on meeting customers' changing demands through their online store and fast logistic services. Rosie Clarkson is an experienced sales and marketing specialist at Onshore Cellars, skilled in food and beverage, event management and wine tasting. In an exclusive interview with  LWC, Rosie shared some important insights about Onshore Cellars.

What is the USP of Onshore Cellars?

Onshore Cellars was established as a wine provisioning company to yachts. Since then the business has diversified and we now also have a wine shop in the centre of Antibes and sell to private clients around the world via our website. As far as we know, we are the only supplier set up by the ex-yachting crew

Where did the idea come from?

Ed and Jess [proprietors] worked onboard for over 15 years and saw an opportunity to position a company which truly understands what it’s like to be on the purchasing side onboard. On top of that, they both loved wine so it seemed to be a natural choice when looking to move to a land-based life.

Did either have much wine experience?

Jess was a chief steward and as such was involved with wine buying and service on a day-to-day basis. Ed was a second officer and helped Jess to buy a pretty impressive wine collection. From the UK and Australia respectively they decided to settle in the South of France where they set up Onshore Cellars in Antibes, one of the key ports for large boats in the Med.

Does the company supply worldwide?

Yes, we pride ourselves on being able to get wine to boats wherever they are in the world. Depending on the country this can sometimes be challenging, but we always find a way!

Where do you source your wines? Do you have any exclusive relationships with winemakers?

We source our wine both directly from wineries and from local suppliers and wholesalers. We are consistently building on existing relationships as well as new ones and introducing Onshore Cellars and what we do to wineries given that it is a fair niche market we are in. The UK wine trade is also an important source of wines for us given that we have clients looking for very specific vintages of top-end wines that are often not available elsewhere with guaranteed provenance.

Do you exclusively supply yacht owners, or have you moved into other areas as well?

Historically we solely supplied wine to yachts. Whilst this is still the main focus of Onshore Cellars, we are growing the business on the private client side as well. Our end goal is to be able to sell wine to the yacht owner not only for their time onboard, but also fill their cellars as well so they have one trusted wine supplier.

What are the best selling wines to yacht owners?

All the big names do well – first growth Bordeaux, top end Burgundy, cult Napa wines, Super Tuscans and, of course, Champagne and rosé. We rarely get an order which doesn’t have large quantities of Provence rosé and Dom Perignon on it.

What’s the biggest order you’ve ever received?

The largest orders for us value wise tend to be the smallest in terms of quantities. It’s not unusual to receive a seriously high-value order which is only a couple of cases. On top of this, we get some of our largest orders when a new build needs to stock up their entire wine cellar and all of the bars onboard.

Are there any particular considerations that have to be taken into account when stocking a yacht? 

Yachting is a service driven industry so understanding the needs of both the guests and crew alike is hugely important to provide a high level of service needed. Provisioning yachts mean that you have to be able to be very reactive as a lot of what we do is very last minute, and generally needed yesterday. We run a business which doesn’t stop throughout the season, we need to be on hand seven days a week and in an ideal world 24 hours a day. Logistics are also really important in terms of being able to deliver to ports around the world.

What wine trends are you seeing emerging in the yachting world?

Super Tuscans are growing in popularity year on year as is the premium spirit category. There is also a big movement currently to reduce the amount of plastic going onboard yachts given that the majority all drink bottled water.