Majestic Wine is the UK’s largest wine warehouse chain, with over 150 stores in England, Scotland and Wales, as well as three stores under the Wine & Beer World banner in the channel ports of France.
1980 Majestic starts out from a single store in London's Wood Green
1986 Goodbye handwritten invoices, hello electronic till system (finally!)
1991 Following a decade of changing ownership and slow but steady growth, the business is acquired by the current management team. The Majestic journey began in earnest.
1993 In our first dalliance with corporate sales, the department that will go on to become ‘Majestic Commercial’ is born
1995 July sees our 50th store open in Southampton
1996 Majestic becomes a public company under the stewardship of Tim How, floating on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM)
1997 We further hone our service offering by supplying our first on-trade package
1998 Champagne all round as turnover grows by over £10m in one year to smash through the £50m mark for the first time
2000 We launch majestic.co.uk in April. A decade later, it’s one of the busiest wine sites on the web, taking sales in excess of £21m a year
2001 Majestic acquires Les Celliers de Calais, run for UK customers stocking up on wine at French channel ports. Now operating as Wine & Beer World in Calais, Coquelles and Cherbourg, it offers all our wines at competitive low-duty prices
2002 We open our 100th store in Dorchester and turnover exceeds £100m for the first time. Cue more champagne...
2003 Our maiden temperature-controlled warehouse dedicated to fine wine opens in our St John’s Wood store. Nearly half of our stores have since followed suit, with their own selection of fine wines for sale.
2005 With the October launch of the all-new Majestic Gift Solutions, corporate and private customers can buy hand-picked, hand-wrapped wines as gifts
2008 Tim How retires in August, leaving our current Chief Executive, Steve Lewis, to take the reins after his own 23-year journey through the business
2009 A busy year!
• Sales pass £200m
• We open our 150th store in Leith Walk
• In March we acquire fine wine specialists Lay & Wheeler
• September sees us move to a 6 bottle minimum purchase – a very popular decision!
• Majestic is crowned ‘Wine Chain of the Year’ at the Decanter World Wine Awards; ‘High Street Merchant of the Year’ at the International Wine Challenge; and ‘Best Large Wine Merchant’ at the Decanter Readers' Awards (the latter two for the second year running!)
2010 With our commercial business now worth more than £50m in sales, Majestic Commercial is formally launched