When we first agreed to meet up for a chat to mark Robert Joseph’s 20 years as a wine producer we thought that was enough of a milestone to be celebrating. But as it turned out we actually got together a few hours after he had gone through his last session of treatment for a prostrate cancer diagnosis he only discovered by a chance blood test earlier in the year.
When I suggested we postpone to another time, he typically could not understand why we would and was quite happy jumping on a train straight from hospital to meet up in Clapham Junction.
Thankfully his prostrate cancer was caught earlier enough to be treated and whilst he has a lot more hospital visits to come he is understandably reflective on the impact his diagnosis has had not just on him but the importance for men of a certain age to be properly and regularly tested.
Ever the journalist he is quick to say that his recent comments on social media and Linked-in, talking openly and frankly about his cancer treatment, have been his most read and, crucially, the most positively critiqued. With far more people wanting to comment and engage with him on his cancer story than on any of his latest commentaries on the future of the wine sector.
It is an irony that is very much not lost on him.
To many Robert Joseph is one of the world's most respected and in deman wine critics and commentators, but he is also a very successful wine producer in his own right with French wine brand Le Grand Noir that is now sold in over 60 countries
The treatment has also, arguably for the first time in his professional life, forced him to spend more time at home and take a step back from a schedule that usually sees him travelling to multiple countries a month, flitting between airport lounges, conference halls, tasting rooms and vineyards.
If there is a more hard working person in the wine industry then I have yet to meet them. It is one of the reassuring aspects of being a regular on the conference and international trade show circuit myself to see his familiar figure, laden down with bottles of wine and his always too heavy shoulder bag, rushing between stands and speaking engagements, but always with enough time to share some wise words and predictions as he floats on by.
Joseph knows his stuff because he has put in the long hard yards - and miles - to do so. The reason he is the go to wine consultant for so many wine brands and businesses is there is arguably no-one else in the industry with such a vast range of roles, responsibilities and experiences.
But even more importantly he still has a burning desire and passion to not just share those insights with anyone who wants to hear them, but is constantly listening, probing, challenging and striving to find out more not just about the wine industry, but any relevant sector that can point us in a brighter and better direction.
That’s what makes him stand out. He doesn’t just think outside the box, he goes out to find boxes that no-one else is thinking in.
Building Le Grand Noir
Le Grand Noir is a French wine brand based on creating both single varietal and blended wines from the Minervois in the Languedoc
But - in true Joseph manner - we digress. Let’s get back to the main point of our conversation and the birth, growth and success of Le Grand Noir. A French wine brand that he admits few in the UK might have heard of. But if you come across its stand at Wine Paris or ProWein it will be full of buyers from all over the world negotiating prices and putting in orders for the next year’s harvest.
He admits he did not expect it to have the international success it had when he first came up with the idea with his fellow Grand Noir conspirators design guru Kevin Shaw, founder of Stranger & Stranger, and winemaker, Hugh Ryman, who has made wine all over the world.
But their vision of creating a multi-varietal French wine brand, without owning any vineyards or wineries, that could be scaled depending on its success, has been proven right to the point that Grand Noir produces, nearly 4 million bottles a year and is on sale in over 60 markets around the world.
“The key is doing something a bit different in terms of the why not? Why not do a New World brand from the Languedoc.”
It also came at the right time in his own life when in 2005 he first child had been born and Wine Magazine and the International Wine Challenge, where he had been co-chairman for 20 years, was bought by William Reed. After he was given an offer to go and work there that he could easily refuse he was suddenly in need of a new job and career.
“I was at an absolutely crossroads in my life and did not want to go and be a freelance wine writer,” he recalls.
Hugh Ryman, co-founder of Le Grand Noir, has made wine all over the world, from Bordeaux and Spain to Australia and South America.
Kevin Shaw, co-founder of Le Grand Noir, is the "genius" designer and founder of Stranger & Stranger design agency
Instead his mind started to turn away from writing about wine to not exactly making wine himself, but working with people who could. He had, through the IWC, got to know Hugh Ryman well and also done some initial branding work with the designer Kevin Shaw and they started to plot the idea of starting a wine brand together.
The first idea was to make a Bordeaux brand that could sit in the same ball park as Mouton Cadet, but they soon realised there simply was not the demand in the market for what they proposing to make. At least not from Bordeaux.
Joseph explains: “All those years working on wine competitions had taught me that the quality of any wine is only part of the picture. Without a memorable label and good distribution, you’re just another tree in a jungle of good trees. So, we wanted to make a good wine that was also a brand.
Why not French Hardy’s, or a French Mondavi? An accessible, widely-available French brand?"
To be scalable and consistent in style and quality, the brand could not be held back by France’s convoluted and complex appellation system.
So thanks to Ryman’s contacts their focus turned to the Languedoc and in particular a 6,000 hectare estate, owned by Celliers Jean d’Alibert in the Minervois, made up of over 1,000 grapegrowers.
The scale of Celliers Jean d’Alibert's 6,000 hectares of vineyards across the Minervois gives Le Grand Noir a wide range of grapes from multiple soils and climates to choose from
It was their decision, from the start, to source all its fruit from and work with Celliers Jean d’Alibertthat has been the key to Le Grand Noir’s success, says Joseph. A producer partner that just happens to have access to fruit from a 6,000ha cooperative estate that covers a multitude of soil types, from chalk to clay to sand, altitudes that stretch from 50m to 300m and big changes in climate and temperature thanks to the cooling winds that sweep through the area. It also has all the right sustainability and organic credentials with its growers all having HVE and vegan status.
It means every bottle of Le Grand Noir can claim to be a combination of different terroir with grapes coming in from Minervois, Minervois La Livinière, and Pays d'Oc appellations.
It also means Le Grand Noir is able to make the same style of wine every year based on the Celliers Jean d’Alibert using different combinations of grapes grown on different terroir, climate and altitudes depending on the peculiarities of that year’s harvest.
Le Grand Noir gives ownership of the wines to Celliers Jean d’Alibert to ensure it has access to its best grapes and vineyards
Le Grand Noir’s first two wines put a marker in the ground to what it wanted to achieve. Being a combination of blends that no-one else in the region was doing to any reasonable volume - a Cabernet and Shiraz and a Chardonnay and Viognier.
Product, branding and distribution
Joseph says there were three key things he “understood” from the start that have helped Le Grand Noir get to where it is now.
First you need to get the product right and make sure you can guarantee your supply and be able to scale it up.
Le Grand Noir logo that is the cornerstone of the brand that features on all its bottles
Secondly “was the importance of the brand” and its image, which was why making Kevin Shaw an equal shareholder, which on paper might seem unusual for a label designer, but has been crucial in its development.
“Kevin is a genius. I knew he was a star ascending but did know he would ascend as far as he has,” he adds.
Then third was the importance of distribution which he believes a lot of wine people still don’t get.
“I understood that distribution mattered.If you have you have not got a good distributor it does not matter how good your product is,” he stresses.
For example, crucially, Joseph and his co-founders ensured they had the long term support for the brand in the US by giving major US drinks distributor the Johnson Brothers ownership of the brand in America. That way they were guaranteeing a major US player would a) stock and sell the wine and b) they would do so in preference to other French brands.
“It gave them skin in the game,” he says.
Johnson Brothers have subsequently over the last 20 years gone from being around the eighth biggest player in the US to being in the top five which has significantly helped Le Grand Noir grow to be the 11th biggest French brand in the States and accounts for around 35% of its sales.
The distribution lesson was something he learnt during his time on the International Wine Challenge where he would see some trophy winning wines not being sold hardly anywhere, yet a silver or bronze medal wine might be in every supermarket. Or when he helped host a IWC event say in Japan, the only people exhibiting were the distributors. There were no producer stands.
“That was the first thing for us to do - to get some US distribution,” he adds, which made it easierto get distribution in other countries. But you also have to have the right products for each market which is why it has now developed 15 different SKUs to suit the individual needs of countries around the world. Of which no country takes more than five or six.
Le Grand Noir's impressive distribution around the world which now sees it on sale in over 60 countries
That distribution strategy has seen it grow sales in 60 countries, become the biggest French brand in India - thanks to its distribution deal with Sula - the number one in the Baltics, become “pretty big” in Poland and “very good in Belgium” and yet “weak” in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands and is working hard to do better there.
He says it is pretty satisfying to say the least to be able to go on holiday in Vietnam and be able to drinks Le Grand Noir in Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat.
The most exciting thing now, he continues, “is Africa where we are beginning to do quite well. With the challenge of Trump tariffs in the US, you really need these other markets”.
Putting the producer in charge
Another aspect to Le Grand Noir’s success, says Joseph, is the fact “Le Grand Noir has never owned any of the wine - ever”.
He explains: “What we have said to the producer is we can give you more margin on your wine than you are currently getting. They essentially reserve the wine we want based on what our distributors are asking for. All our distributors then buy directly from the winery and we take a royalty on each sale.”
It means Le Grand Noir wines that Celliers Jean d’Alibert is producing are the most profitable wines it makes because of the margins Le Grand Noir is able to give them, claims Joseph. A level of margin that gives it the scope and flexibility to scale up or down the volumes of wine it needs based on the orders it has from its distributors. Which, in turn, also secures the amount of its best fruit for Le Grand Noir every year.
Hence a €9 bottle of Le Grand Noir will include some grapes from La Livinière region of the Minervois considered to be the Grand Cru of the Langeudoc, says Joseph.
Going alcohol free
Le Grand Noir has also now developed its own spinning cone, alcohol free red and white wines - a Grenache/ Pinot Noir and Grenache Blanc/ Chardonnay - with natural fruit flavours, whose 13gm of residual sugar is well below an industry average that is closer to 40gm.
It is an area of the market that Joseph believes any international brand needs to be in, particularly if you are looking to sell in to the Middle East, and it opens your brand up to so many new opportunities - particularly at alcohol free vs O.5%. That’s “the bar that has been set” by likes of Guinness, Heineken and the major spirits brands and where Grand Noir also needs to be, he says.
Joseph has also spent the last “five weeks not being able to drink wine” and become far more familiar with what is available and it has cemented his belief in the necessity to be making an alcohol free wine that “isn’t sweet, has flavour and I can drink with food”.
The wine is “starting to get traction” into a few markets and is on sale in the UK with Robersons and it is an area it will continue to work on in terms of quality and the balance of the wines. But these are also expensive wines to make and need to be at the same price point as their standard wines, regardless of duty rates, if they are to be seen in the same way that Guinness 0% is sold at the same price as regular Guinness, he adds.
“The key is whether the product is worth it or not. It’s got to be as good as the price you are charging for it.”
Le Grand Noir has worked hard to build a strong lifestyle image and branding on social media
Le Petit Noir
In terms of next steps as well as its foray into alcohol free, the team is also introducing a new brand concept called Le Petit Noir, which is essentially a set of red, a white and a pink entry-level versions of Le Grand Noir - using blends of Languedoc grapes, under the Vin de France designation.
A brand that again plays heavily on New World branded wines and will be non-traditional blends from traditional French varieties.
Joseph explains: “From the beginning it has always been about what does the market want and not what do we want to make. The market has a gap for a simpler Le Grand Noir-style scaleable wine at a more entry level price point.”
Hence Le Petit Noir with a sub £10 price positioning versus £10 plus for Le Grand Noir.
As Joseph looks back on 20 years of Le Grand Noir he can take a great deal of satisfaction that it has achieved “exactly what it hoped to do”.
* You can find out more about Le Grand Noir at its website here.
