121 | Scaling Local Trust: How Brodie Meah Distributes Top Cuvée Wines Nationally Without Losing Its London Neighbourhood Soul
A restaurant is nothing without a community. And then, honestly, I think that scales into your brand. And I think this is another example where it's less easy to see, but it still exists. So, you know, when you're building a brand that's like you don't have a restaurant and any retail retail or or anything, but that community is still there. It's just you can't see it, and you can't talk to them face to face.
Brodie Meah:But that's where we do our events. It's real core part of our business and long term. And no matter how big we end up getting or what we end up doing, we'll always think about our community first.
Chris Maffeo:This is the second part of the conversation with Brodie Meah from Top Cuvée. I hope you listen to part one because then you will really understand it better. In this episode, we focus more on the community building, side of, building Topcovet and also on the thin balance between being relevant in the neighbourhoods, in this case in Highbury in London, but then also scaling a wine business.
Brodie Meah:I think relating it to your chat around the bottom up sort of thing, like, that can't happen without the baseline. You know? People have to you have to develop the trust and drink in glass by glass. You can't just be trusted. You know?
Brodie Meah:You have to build it up. And, like, our journey is a really good example of that. And, like, we've done it all ourselves through every channel of opening our own restaurant, opening our own stores. If we didn't do that, why on earth would these other wine buyers and other operators want to start Topgouvet wines?
Chris Maffeo:Also how you can use these two elements, the physical space, which is the venue and the retailer and the restaurant to to test things, test and learn, and then implement things online or in the wholesale part of the business. Whether you are in in hospitality or you're building a brand or you are a distributor, this is a fantastic episode where there is a lot to learn from Brodie and from our conversation. Let's dive in now.
Brodie Meah:Hey, Chris. Thanks for having me.
Chris Maffeo:What would you say is the biggest difference between wines and spirits?
Brodie Meah:I think spirits are like more just openly commercial in the way that they're marketing and selling their product. No shame to try and sell spirits. Whereas in wine there's a lot of reliance on provenance and just let the wine speak for themselves. This is too pure of a liquid to market even though there's budgets being thrown around in the wine world just as there is in spirits. But I think the way people perceive it and talk about it, in the kind of like low intervention side of things as well.
Brodie Meah:Marketing is almost like a dirty word there. And yeah, that's something that we do differently in the wine industry. It's like, yeah, we work with these incredible kind of well made, low intervention, sometimes biodynamic organic wines, but we're not dogmatic about that. And, you know, we still recognize that, yeah, you need to push and sell them and get them in front of people and get that liquid on those lips.
Chris Maffeo:Are your guests looking for that low intervention wines, biodynamics, organic wines specifically? Do you feel that that that's why they're coming to visit you or they're coming to visit your restaurant and then they happen to discover the those type of wines?
Brodie Meah:Yeah. It's a good question. I think it's changed over the years. I think when we first started, that was like a big thing. People were coming to try and, like, find that natural wine was like the turn of the the time, but over time I think people just now want to drink wines that take nights.
Brodie Meah:And natural, the term natural wine I think can be like a bit detrimental and negative because some people have had bad experiences with wines like that. So we sort of stay away from that term now and just we just talk about wine. But, yeah, I feel like people just want to drink wines that are consistently tasting goods, and the term natural wine, I think, definitely puts off people. And like with our mission of making wine accessible to everyone, that's at loggerheads with that. So that's why we've decided that we're not gonna really lean into that too much.
Brodie Meah:Initially, we thought that would be like, know, kinda like how craft beer was and craft gin, where it was just a term that meant quality, but that hasn't really transpired. Like, wine is sort of stayed niche.
Chris Maffeo:And I I feel the same,
Brodie Meah:to be
Chris Maffeo:honest, because it's the going back to what we were saying about, you know, the difference between spirits and wives, it's also that, let's say, there is an element of consistency in spirits because it's more industrial even though I mean, even the craft ones that they are anyway somehow industrial. So there is that element of consistency that is much more, well, consistent than wines. You know, wines change year by year. You know, it's more it's more an agricultural it's a pure agricultural product compared to compared to beer or to or to spirits in that in that sense.
Brodie Meah:Yeah, absolutely. And that's like something you just can't ignore. I was having a conversation similar with someone recently. And, yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Know, when you're kind of like building a spirits brand, even beer, right?
Brodie Meah:It's made from ingredients, so you can tweak the recipe as you go. And, like, gin is an amazing example. Right? Like, oh, we wanna release a new gin this year, and we're gonna, like, add these botanicals, so it's targeted at this section of the market. Whereas with wine, it's like, no.
Brodie Meah:You know, what is the what's the harvest like? Cool. Well, this is what we're making this year. And that's obviously part of the magic, but I think that's where the differences come from. It's because of the inherent difference in the product, and I think you've nailed it there.
Brodie Meah:It's an inherently agricultural thing. You have to take into account the scalability of that as well. You can't scale a winery really, because you need more and more grapes, which need more and more land. Barley, can buy either ton. Obviously, you want get quality ingredients, but much more available.
Chris Maffeo:That's true. For wine companies, it's more difficult to mess it up in terms of marketing and distribution and availability. Because at some point, if you've got a good product and it's constrained by volume, you can keep it, you know, pure. But with spirits, you basically press the button and increase the production on regular spirits. I'm not talking about aged spirits.
Chris Maffeo:So it's safer to keep the premium level of a wine compared to a spirits or a beer brand that actually just like, you know, if the management wants to to push the button and push the accelerator, then, you know, it gets easily distributed almost everywhere.
Brodie Meah:Yeah, I think that's really insightful point, Chris, because that really does answer the initial kind of the question of like, why are these wines marketed in this way? Well, I think that's clearly why, isn't it? Because they they're not scalable. So they need to increase the price of the the limited product they've got. So, yeah, that's that's an interesting take for sure.
Chris Maffeo:Let's talk about the the community. I mean, you mentioned at the beginning the fact of, you know, I mean, you started in a local neighborhood. No? And then when COVID hits, if I understood correctly, then you were just starting to take off. That moment was the moment that you felt that you had a stable community of people and customers coming through the door.
Chris Maffeo:What does the neighborhood in a place like the entree play as part of building a restaurant before the wine brand?
Brodie Meah:Oh, literally a 100% of it. You know, a restaurant, a neighborhood restaurant is your community for facts because it's we're not in Soho. So, you know, we are literally serving people at dinner on, like, a Wednesday night sometimes. And, yeah, the community factor is is huge when you're when you're operating a a restaurant like that because it's repeat custom. That's it.
Brodie Meah:You know? You get people coming through on the weekends that travel, and, you know, they've heard of us and stuff. But, yeah, it's what it's all about. You know, we we had well, our first customers, I remember them, and I'm still friends with them now. And it's like they really take a chance first and foremost, you know, because they come in, and I feel like you get a little moment when you're opening a restaurant in the neighborhood where everyone's gonna give you a chance because they love new things in their neighborhood.
Brodie Meah:Right? Because it's like, oh, cool. This is for us. This is our spot. Amazing.
Brodie Meah:And if you get it right and you look after them, then they're like, this is our place. Know? This is our restaurant. I always remember we that was our first little foray into like merch. We had some t shirts made for me and the team to wear and one of these people were like, oh, can I buy one of them?
Brodie Meah:And I was just like, alright. Yeah. Sure. You know, this is our uniform, mate. What?
Brodie Meah:So I sold him one, and then the next week, he came in proudly wearing it, and he was like, look. I've got the t shirt on and I was like wow that's kind of weird but that's really freaking cool and thank you like that's awesome that you want to showcase your passion for our little restaurant here and yeah those people came back and they bring their friends and yeah that's your restaurant a restaurant is nothing without a community and then honestly, think that scales into your brand. And I think this is another example where it's less easy to see, but it still exists. So you know, when you're building a brand that's like you don't have a restaurant and any retail or anything, but that community is still there. It's just you can't see it, and you can't talk to them face to face.
Brodie Meah:But that's where we do our events. It's real core part of our business and long term. And no matter how big we end up getting or what we end up doing, we'll always think about our community first.
Chris Maffeo:That's so fascinating because what you made me think now when you said that is the if I take it on this podcast, the silent listener that never reach out or never sends a comment or a feedback or a replies to an email is like the silent guest in your restaurant. No? It's the guy or the girl that sits up there. Like, they order. They eat.
Chris Maffeo:You know? They're not loud in the sense of reaching out or wearing your shirt or wanting some more, but they are the steady repeat customer that maybe come there every twice a week or once a week. And so it's so so fascinating what you see, let's say, online and offline, you know, like in physically and remotely, what you can see on building a restaurant, building a brand like the wine brand, and then building a shop and building more ethereal things like a podcast or a service?
Brodie Meah:We're humans. It's the same. Community drives everything. It really does. Your podcast example is exactly right.
Brodie Meah:You know, you got your regular listeners. They keep the lights on and, like, in a restaurant, you see them face to face, but you don't have that, like, data driven kind of thing. But then for us, it was like when ecommerce kicked in, we really realized, like, oh my god, wow, this person's placed like a 100 orders. They're like a huge part of what we do. And then we used to do what was really exciting was like, we'd cross reference sometimes, like restaurant data from our booking system.
Brodie Meah:Oh, cool. Like that person's a regular. Let's export our e commerce data and kind of crossmatch the names. Yeah, it was incredible to see, like the layers of community. And I think that's what community is all about as well.
Brodie Meah:It's like, it's not just not necessarily just there because they like the house wine by the glass or they they really enjoy the tartar or one of our desserts. They love the brand and they love the business and what we do, so they're happy to be a part of whatever if we do, which is cool.
Chris Maffeo:How does community in that sense play according to you in actually building a brand in that sense? You know, like the fact that you started your own brand, you know, how does your brand travel and how does that relate to the community? You know, there will be locals that, as you just said, will buy the product because they know you and they've been there, but then there will also be buyers that have never visited Topkove as a venue. So how do you play between these two worlds?
Brodie Meah:Yeah. I think it's difficult. We just try to create things that please people and make people happy. I think that's it, really. We always just on the side of spreading joy and positivity when it comes to, like, our products.
Brodie Meah:So not being intimidating, simple, approachable, tasty. It's an interesting question, and it's not one that we've really cramped. But we know that what we do for our community, they really appreciate. And like I say, we've got data. We can see that people like the TopCuvet vibe and the experience of just how we are and who we are.
Brodie Meah:So when we create products, we just try and push that through. We don't have a master plan or a brand strategy for that. It's just be yourself for your products. And then I think how that also works, and then this is another really interesting thing about our community now, is like partnering with the right stockists, you know. So like the biggest success that we have in b to b sales is working with like minded restaurants and like minded shops and bars because their customers are really similar to ours.
Brodie Meah:So then they get it, and then you can just see all of this ecosystem be really come into play. And they're benefiting from it because they're getting some of our expertise about how we kind of present the wines and talk about them and how they look and the price points and all that. And then we're getting the benefit of their audience. So that's a nice little relationship. The community for us now is, like, actually building, yeah, a little bit more relationship with owners, operators, wine buyers, stuff like that, representing COPQV in their little way, and that's that's cool.
Chris Maffeo:That's true. That's true. I like what you're saying about that, you know, ecosystem. I don't know if you know, like, Maffeo drinks comes from an inspiration of my great grandfather, my grandfather, and they had they were wholesalers in the South Of Italy. And they were F and B wholesalers, so they had all the cheeses and hams and, you know, as well as wines, olive oil, and so on.
Chris Maffeo:And what I like about, you know, the parallel that I make with you as Top Cuvier is the fact that you are bringing together wines that may not be known if it wasn't for you in, you know, not giving you too much credit for this producer because they're actually making the product. So obviously, it's somebody playing a role, but you are making it available to a certain amount of people that trust you as Top Cuvier as a brand and then automatically trust their producer. You know? So that winemaker in whatever, the middle of nowhere may not have access to those people if it wasn't for Top Cuvier because you are making that brand that is a trusted brand. And what I like about it is the fact that, you know, you can enable that brand experience because if I come there for dinner or lunch, you know, I see that bottle alive on my table and automatically I get transported into that vineyard, but I also get transported into an experience that you are enabling.
Chris Maffeo:You transmit that also through wholesalers and not only through end consumers because they are also using Top Cuvier as a brand, as a trust source of here's a wine and then that's how you can trust me because we've made the job of selecting those wines.
Brodie Meah:Yeah. So I know I just said that we don't really have some sort of brand strategy, but I think you've just nailed it for us, Chris.
Chris Maffeo:I'll send you an invoice.
Brodie Meah:Yeah. That is exactly it, mate. That's what we're doing, and that is why we sort of put our name on all of our products, and that's why we're moving into this sort of branded portfolio. Still want to highlight the incredible work that goes into all these wines, and we work with many different producers, but yeah, absolutely. It's all about building trust of the consumer through the Top Pouvee logo essentially.
Brodie Meah:And it's just about saying, these wines are all super different, but they've got the sort of Tocqueuve stamp of approval, and then you can trust them and try out new things. That's what we're building. That's what we're doing is a trust engine, I guess.
Chris Maffeo:Yeah. I love that because ultimately, I mean, I always bring the example. I mean, I'm from Rome and I'm, you know, there were like some wine, you know, enoteca as we call them in Italy. I remember my father going to this enoteca in Rome, in my neighbor, Corte De Trieste. And, you know, I remember, like, those bags.
Chris Maffeo:I've been seeing those plastic bags, you know, since I was a child, you know, with the logo of that wine shop. And I always bring that as an example that, you know, just by bringing a random wine bottle to a dinner with that plastic bag, automatically, it was a sign, a seal of approval because everybody in the neighborhood knew that those were great wines. Regardless if you had spent €8 on it or €80 on it, you knew that it was coming from that shop that was already selected on your behalf. Ultimately, when we think about it, people in especially in today's world, I mean, I'm talking now eighties and nineties, and the wine shop is still open. But when you take today's world of bombardment of Instagram and photos and messages and WhatsApp and audio, you are basically removing a fatigue from people.
Chris Maffeo:And it's like, mate, you know, like, I'm just coming here. I'm going for a dinner. We're gonna have this food. I want to spend this much money. What do you have?
Chris Maffeo:And then we can have a conversation about it rather than me sitting in front of a shelf and spending half an hour.
Brodie Meah:But the yeah. They you know, we just want people to come and say, oh, cool. Oh, I recognize that. I'll have it. But then I think relating it to your chat around the bottom up sort of thing, like, that can't happen without the baseline.
Brodie Meah:You know? People have to you have to develop the trust and drinking glass by glass. You can't just be trusted, know? You have to build it up. And like our journey is a really good example of that.
Brodie Meah:And like we've done it all ourselves through every channel of opening our own restaurant, opening our own stores. If we didn't do that, why on earth would these other wine buyers and other operators want to stop top of their wines because they're not proven. But then now where we're at it's like this big flywheel where not only have we proven it so we've got into some great partnerships, and we're seeing this now actually. Now we've been working in the business to business side for quite a while. It's like people are seeing the wines in other places, and they're saying, that's cool.
Brodie Meah:So what's this top UV? I'll check it out. And then it becomes a big, big flywheel. We're starting to get interest now in conversations from like bigger, like national chains and stuff, and it's not something that we're like rushing into, but that would just never happen if we hadn't done all the groundwork of, you know, just working in hybrid and serving our 40 customers a night.
Chris Maffeo:Starting with the restaurant, you start with explaining a feeling. And this is all about what I'm talking about the bottom up mindset, mentality, philosophy, or whatever that is, because I even I don't know how to explain it, is the fact that you are willing to put yourself at risk and your money at risk for, you know, opening something that may have one customer, you know, and two customers and three customers at the beginning, you know? But you are giving them an experience that you cannot frame in a brand strategy at the beginning because you don't know. It's you, you know, at the beginning it's you, how you make people feel and how, you know, if they like the food, if they like the wine, if they like the atmosphere and the music. And then that develops into something that maybe they can't even explain what it is.
Chris Maffeo:You know, if you asked a random customer of yours coming for lunch or dinner at Cop Top Covet, they may not be able to explain why they come there, but it's something so, let's say, emotional for them. No? And then that builds you know, that gets transformed into a logo. You know? And then when you see the logo on the bottle of Top Cuvier, it's the embodiment and it's the, let's say, it's the print of that feeling, which is so fascinating for me, you know, because that's how then you, you know, you build your b to b clientele, you know, you build your distribution, rotation, and so on.
Chris Maffeo:What is fascinating for me is the fact that compared to other brands that are starting as a brand that you don't know how to explain, you you have a venue that can explain and can make people feel something right or wrong and then make them decide if that feeling is something for them or not.
Brodie Meah:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And I think like, that's why when we were chatting earlier about the brand and stuff, it's like, see it as a blessing on the curse.
Brodie Meah:The way that you describe it, it's a blessing because the grass is always greener. Right? And I'm like, oh, hey. If I just needed to write the story, it'd be good. But if we didn't have any of that experience, then there would be no story.
Brodie Meah:And you're so right as well. When it comes to a restaurant, I was chatting to a brand strategy guy, and he was saying some people approach him to do the branding strategy for restaurants, and he always turns it down because there is no strategy. The restaurant is like, it's good food and it's vibes. There's no strategy to that, but it is a thing. And then, yeah, that's where we're at with Top Cave now.
Brodie Meah:It's like we've been doing that for so long that, you know, I no longer work in the restaurant, obviously, and the experience is the same. We've kind of taken my personality and turned that into, like, a brand document is because you have it all kind of written down now, know, our tone of voice and everything, and it's about capturing that original personality and that started the restaurant, making it consistent, and able for other people execute, I think, is what we're working on. A restaurant is a great blank canvas for you to come up with your brand.
Chris Maffeo:It it is. But also what you were saying, you know, like, if if you had not built that strong community, you know, during COVID, you know, you wouldn't have been able to transform yourself into also off trade and and d to c e commerce. But then also at the same time, if it wasn't for that transformation, then maybe you would have stayed a restaurant, you know, and you wouldn't have thought about doing the wine shop. So it's so fascinating to see how things develop and how people like you are able to grasp opportunities and then transform a strategy that you would have never guessed when you started. So Brodie, thanks a lot for for this chat.
Chris Maffeo:It was it was very fascinating. And can you tell us how can people find you and TopCouve so that people can reach out to you if they want or visit you?
Brodie Meah:Yeah. Totally. So if you wanna reach out to me personally, probably Instagram at Brodie Meah, and, yeah, come and visit us. We've got a restaurant in Highbury. We've got a shop just around the corner in Highbury, and we also have a wine bar in Shoreditch, so we'd love to see you down there.
Chris Maffeo:Fantastic. So thanks a lot, Brodie, once again, and I hope to come and visit you soon in London.
Brodie Meah:Let me know when you're coming.
Chris Maffeo:Thanks, Brodie. That's all for today. Remember that there's also part one of this episode where you will understand even better why we talk about certain things in this second part. If you can think of if you can think of a couple of friends that can benefit from this episode or people with a bar or a restaurant or a wine business, please send it to them because I think they can learn a lot. Also, please remember to rate the show if you like, and that really helps the podcast, grow.
Chris Maffeo:In this episode, we talked about a lot of things, you know, mainly, I would say, the the community building, how to take a place that is a physical place and build a scale business, whether it's wholesale or ecommerce, and how did he manage to build a wine brand starting from actually a restaurant and an establishment. It's a super fascinating story. Come back next week, and remember that brands are built bottom up.
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