Wine lover Stephen Cronk, 60, co-founded the Provençal rosé brands, Maison Mirabeau, with his wife Jeany in 2009. Production started in 2011 with the 2010 vintage. The wines are sold in Waitrose and other major UK supermarkets, as well as Harrods and Harvey Nichols.
Turnover has grown from €17,500 in the first year to about €15mn today. Their portfolio includes 10 still rosés, a sparkling rosé, a grape-based rosé gin, and a new rosé spritz created in partnership with Fever-Tree. The flagship wine is Mirabeau Pure, which retails for about £17. The wines now sell in 50 countries, and there are plans to expand sales in the US.
Working with a community of growers around Provence for 10 years, in 2019 the couple acquired Domaine Mirabeau near Saint-Tropez, adding the 50-acre estate to their production. They employ 27 people.
CV
Born: November 5, 1963, South London
Education: 1977-82: Seaford College, West Sussex (A-level Economics, English and Art)
1982/83: Gap year in Australia. Captivated by vineyards and wine production in Barossa Valley
1983-1985: University of Brighton (HND in business studies)
1987-89: Part-time diploma course with the Wine & Spirit Education Trust
Career: 1985-88: worked for various wine importers: warehouse assistant and delivery driver, then promotion to salesperson on passing WSET exams.
1988-94: Ran small wine wholesale business from former piano factory in Wandsworth
1994-2008: 15 years in telecoms, mainly selling bandwidth on fibre optic subsea cables
2009: Moved to Cotignac to create Maison Mirabeau
2011: Launched wine brand in UK
Lives: Cotignac, Provence (nearest city Aix-en-Provence), with Jeany who runs the creative side of the brand. Their children are Josie, 23, Felix, 22, and George, 16.
Did you start your venture by accident or design?
Very much by design. It took me 10 years to develop a plan and persuade my wife to sell our home in Teddington, a suburb of west London. We had bought an amazing house to renovate and thought we would never move again — but were only there for four years.
We bought the house for £900,000 and spent another £200,000 on renovation. The £1.6mn proceeds from the sale were the only investment we had. We took with us about €1.25mn (£1.04mn). That gave us time to establish the brand and pay for our living expenses. We had to self-finance, because we had no experience in winemaking, we barely spoke French, and had certainly not built a brand before.
Was there a seminal moment in your business?
Probably when I met a British Master of Wine in the Languedoc in 2008. He told me about the three Vs: viticulture, vinification and vendre, farming vines, winemaking and selling. Up until then I thought I would focus on buying a vineyard. He said don’t buy a vineyard yet: build a brand. Looking back, it was absolutely the right advice.
What has been the hardest adjustment to living in France?
Public servants and special interest groups strike on a regular basis. In 2018, the gilets jaunes protested for months against the cost of oil and fuel, blocking most transport and even motorways. Social charges are much higher in France, and there is a lot of red tape for business, with a huge amount of paperwork. You need specialist help to navigate this.
Have there been any unexpected benefits?
The best advantage is that the children have learnt so much growing up in a different culture and country. They have become mentally resilient, are amazing cooks, and they speak fluent French. Jeany and I love the Provençal way of life, especially eating most meals alfresco.
What is the best way to save for old age?
I did not start a pension until I was 30, which I consider was a bit late. I paid my sales commission cheques into a private plan. Sometimes they were for tens of thousands. I’m now in the process of planning for eventual retirement. We’d like to have a pied-à-terre in London, as our children live there.
Which investment did you lose sleep over?
I have lost sleep regularly since 2009, because we had to sell our house in Teddington. I certainly could not have done this without the support of my wife, or her creative input. We had to make this work as there was no Plan B.
There were quite a few things that went wrong in the early days. It seems trivial now, but when we finally received our first order, for 10,000 bottles from Waitrose, the screw caps arrived in gold instead of dark grey. We had to send them back and wait another two months for the right colour. We were behind schedule, but Waitrose supported us throughout.
Of far greater significance, a forest fire in 2021 destroyed 20,000 acres of nature reserve surrounding our estate. The fire came right into the vineyard, destroying two barns. The whole harvest was lost to smoke damage, for which we had no insurance. The impact on the Domaine is still being felt. The burnt trees around us are a reminder of that tragic day. High temperatures and a discarded cigarette from a car caused the fire.
Do you believe in giving something back to the community?
I do. Three years ago, during lockdown, I set up The Regenerative Viticulture Foundation, a UK-based charity which promotes greater biodiversity in viticulture. I have access to experts in the fields of science, farming and communications.
Regenerative farming is where we focus on soil health, biodiversity and carbon sequestration to revolutionise how we farm. Worldwide we already have about 1,000 vineyards subscribing to it.
Did the pandemic have a lasting effect on your business?
Yes, but not in the way you might expect. People in the UK drank an awful lot more during the lockdowns and sales soared. We were surprised by the 70 per cent sales increase for those two years.
Currently, the wine market is going through a transformative period, but there are some categories, such as premium rosé and a few others, that can buck the overall downward trend. My general feeling is that the days of volume cheap plonk really are numbered and that you need to make something special and environmentally sound to do well in the future.
What impact has inflation had on your business?
It has had a great impact, especially since the Ukraine war. A large glass manufacturer was based in the Ukraine and that capacity was taken out almost on day one. Prices subsequently increased by 40 per cent and more. Everyone had to switch to producers in France and Europe. Demand was high and people stockpiled out of fear.
We had the Trump tariff shock in October 2019, with a 25 per cent tax on French wines, putting our biggest growth market at risk. This was in retaliation for the Europeans putting a tax on internet companies. We switched to sending our wine in bulk to the US, for bottling on Long Island. This was complicated and stressful. Biden removed the levy in March 2021, so we could revert to normal production.
Inflation has been a big challenge for us, as consumers in the UK were spending less with the cost of living crisis.
If you inherited £1mn, how would you spend it?
I would put a large chunk into my pension, invest some in shares and give an amount to each of the children towards a deposit on their first flat. Anything left over from that would go straight into my foundation, where it could do some good for the environment.
