When it comes to hot potatoes in the UK wine industry the state, future and effectiveness of the London Wine Fair is arguably one of the hottest of them all. Everyone has an opinon. Good, bad or indifferent - and that’s just the views you get to hear throughout the year, never mind the quality of the fair itself.
It’s fair to say - no pun intended - the show has not done itself any favours over the years. From the giddy heights of packing out two halls at London’s colossal ExCel in the late 2000s, it was too slow to recognise, or even react to the emergence of ProWein from 2010 onwards as the new superpower European trade show.
It was as if the UK wine trade decided en masse they would rather jump on a plane to Dusseldorf than brave the Docklands Light Railway to east London. Once they left it has been an almighty battle to get them back.
The London Wine Fair moved back to London Olympia in 2014
The move back to London Olympia, with its tail between its legs in 2014, was the right call to make at the time, but it was also an admission of defeat in terms of where it sat versus the now seemingly unstoppable ProWein and the two year draw of Vinexpo. It even dropped “International” from its title.
It has spent the last 10 plus years trying to re-invent itself and remain relevant to as much of the UK wine industry as possible, valiantly supported by a core group of UK importers, suppliers, and distributors - take a bow the likes of Hatch Mansfield, Mentzendorff, Les Producteurs et Vignerons de France, Schenk Family UK, ABS Wine Agencies, GM Drinks, Beyond Wines and Felix Solis amongst others.
In that time we have seen the emergence of large-scale tasting events that are, in effect, mini trade fairs, hosted by importers and generic bodies. These are usually billed as a portfolio tasting but as distributors have got bigger, and their ranges have expanded, these shows have become mini wine fairs in their own right. Some even take place over two full days.
Which has been great news for them, but particularly bad news for the London Wine Fair, as one by one most of the major UK wine and drinks distributors have left the show to focus on and invest in their own major tastings and events.
But their absence has opened the door for medium sized and smaller suppliers, importers and producers to move in and the show has slowly re-emerged as a platform to promote and celebrate the diversity of the UK wine and drinks industry.
All of this has taken place whilst the London Wine Fair was owned by a major trade show organiser operating across multiple sectors where each show has to live up to increasingly more demanding revenue and profit targets. Year after year the financial shadow hovering over the London Wine Fair has got darker and darker, as more major suppliers left to do their own thing.
“Transformational” year
Which is why last week’s show will go down as arguably its most important in the last 20 years.
London Wine Fair's Hannah Tovey and Chris Losh presenting the show's Drinks Buyers Awards
This was the first time that, Hannah Tovey, who has been managing director of the show since 2017, and her close-knit team had taken the show into private ownership under her new business Vindustrious.
From the moment you walked up to the newly refurbished Olympia it all felt very different. There was a renewed buzz and energy in the room that was there from the moment the doors opened on the Monday right through to close of play on the Wednesday.
All reflected in a healthy jump in visitor numbers up 8.2% across the three days, topping 10,000 for the first time in six years. The 2026 net visitor audience was 10,539 compared to 9,741 in 2025, with Monday’s visitor audience up 13.5% on the previous year.
Exhibitor bookings were also up 9% (from 445 in 2025, to 475 in 2026), with a 13% increase in floor space. And as the end of show’s press release states: “The all-important visitor: exhibitor ratio remains the same, at 22:1, significantly more than double that of LWF’s international competitors.”
The decision to invite BRW//LDN to take part in the London Wine Fair was an inspired moved and helped bring new energy to the event - particularly as it sat alongside an expanded spirits section under the Signature Serve banner
The decision to further widen the show’s offer to include wine, beers and sprits was inspired, and in particular the move to invite BREW//LDN - and with it a large number of passionate craft beer and cider producers - brought a new energy to the show.
Particularly as they sat alongside an expanded Signature Serve section, with an equally bubbling range of craft spirits brands and suppliers, and an expanded no and low alcohol section that brought innovation and fresh creativity to the event.
There was also a huge English wine presence at the show - up five fold on last year - suitably positioned under the Host Nation section of the show.
Tovey and her team deserve enormous credit for creating a show that truly reflects the dynamism and diversity there now is in the industry they serve.
The London Wine Fair is also proving itself on the global stage too and there was again a big uplift in overseas producers and countries taking part. In fact this year’s exhibitor list looked like the medals table from the Olympics, with 3,884 products from over 40 countries, including South Korea, Japan, Serbia and Peru.
It is not just international producers that are coming to the revamped London Wine Fair, but there were, it claims, visitors from 61 countries, with the top four behind the UK (82%) being Italy, France, the US and Spain.
WSTA's Miles Beale hosted a session looking at some of the key drinks indusrty isses with Felix Solis' Richard Cochrane, Marks & Spencer Caroline Thompson-Hill and the Wine Society's Steve Finlan
It’s the show’s new diversified offer that gives it a great platform to build on. After all the drinks industry is blurring day-by-day with a new generation of drinks that are increasingly bringing wine and spirts together, often in the same glass. On the evidence of last week’s show, The London Wine Fair is moving as fast as the industry it is in.
That’s because Tovey’s new events business, Vindustrious, is 100% focused on The London Wine Fair. It is not also looking to juggle countless other trade shows in other sectors in other parts of the world. Any investment it has will only go into this show.
No wonder she describes the 2026 London Wine Fair as “an event like no other” and she very much succeeded in delivering the “transformational” show she wanted and the UK drinks industry needed.
Clarion call
Which is why there has to be a renewed focus by the UK drinks industry as a whole as to what it wants from the show. For too long far too many businesses and senior powerful individual figures have taken the London Wine Fair for granted. They have assumed, like the WSTA or WSET and The Drinks Trust, it will be there whether they support it or not.
But it’s not a charity. It’s not a trade association. It’s now very much an independent business trying to offer this industry an event, a platform, a global opportunity to represent and showcase the very best of what is good about the UK drinks and wine industry.
Which is why it’s time all our major wine companies stop, reflect and show the London Wine Fair the respect it now deserves.
Yes, you might have walked away when you felt it was not delivering what you needed and was not living up to the high expectations you rightly had of it.
WSTA's Lucy Panton and Miles Beale address the key issues facing the wine and spirits sector
But these are very different times. This is an industry that Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA, says is “existentially threatened” about its future.
Talk to any industry leader and they will say roughly the same as the culmination of increased supply chain, energy, business, employment, duty and now packing costs are having an impact on the profitability and viability of businesses right across the UK drinks industry.
Beale used his platform at the show last week to stress how important it is that we as a sector are speaking and acting as one to the powers that be. “We have to make ourselves unignorable to the government” was his key message as he called for united action by the various lobbying trade bodies across hospitality, drinks and retail.
It’s a message every major drinks business should take to heart.
Time to think again
Over the last 10 years too many of our biggest and most powerful and influential drinks companies have chosen to plough their own furrow when it comes to what activity they are doing in the trade when it comes to trade shows and events.
Yes, they might rightly support and help fund the WSTA, WSET and The Drinks Trust but it is events like the London Wine Fair where we need them to be not just seen walking around having meetings, but actually taking part and investing in a show that is the UK’s showcase to the world.
If the Chancellor Rachel Reeves turned up at the London Wine Fair last week wanting to talk to the biggest, best and most influential drinks companies in the UK she would have to hang out in the coffee areas, or attend one of the awards events taking place, to find them as they were nowhere to be seen with their own stands on the trading floor.
Having worked across multiple sectors in my career - including computing, grocery retail, the convience sector and the travel industrry - I have seen the strength and power there is when you have an industry united at events like the World Travel Market where any relevant minister of state can come and get to hear the views of the most influential people in that sector.
The London Wine Fair once again provided the platform to address major changes taking place in the industry like this session hosted by the Buyer on the impact of AI on business
It's not just a problem for the London Wine Fair. Wine Paris and ProWein are also bereft of the big global drinks players that dominate the sector and set the rules and playing field that every other business has to perform on.
As we have already said the exodus of our biggest drinks distributors from the London Wine Fair happened years ago and there is little sign they are ever going to come back now they have firmly established their own successful standalone shows and industry tasting events. Which in the world of business is fair game and good luck to them.
But there are ways they could be supporting the show in the same way they back our all important trade bodies. Be it through corporate partnerships, or sponsoring different aspects of the show - it was good to see, for example, some of the industry’s bigger names as sponsors of the show’s Drinks Buyers Awards.
If they don’t want to exhibit they can still very much play their part in helping the London Wine Fair be the true showcase to the world we all want it to be - particularly now it is privately and independently owned and we can’t rely on it “just always being there”.
But it also means we now have an increasingly polarised wine and spirits industry between those big enough to look after and think about themselves and the wider industry that is still working as one. We need both sides to come together and stand alongside each other if we deserve the right to be taken seriously.
We certainly don’t want our biggest wine suppliers and producers hosting rival portfolio tastings on the same days as the London Wine Fair - that attract the very same sommeliers, buyers, wine merchants and writers that could be at the fair instead. The Buyer was invited to multiple events taking place in London across the three days of the show.
Surely the companies running those events can find dates across the 51 other weeks of the year that don’t clash with the UK’s only major international drinks fair.
If this industry is really going to get the serious attention it craves from the government it needs to start acting as one. The London Wine fair is now the perfect platform this industry needs to get its collective mojo back.
As the WSTA’s Miles Beale says: "It felt like our event, our home, our London Wine Fair.”
* You can find out more about the London Wine Fair here.
