David Porter, head of operations & buying at Lea & Sandeman, outlines the value of building lasting relationships directly with the people who make the wine

There is a moment, usually somewhere between the second glass and the third, or as you bounce along an unmade track in a pick-up truck, when a winemaker shares something no agent’s brochure could ever capture and no wholesaler’s rep could ever know. It might be a confession about a difficult vintage, a decision they nearly got wrong, or simply an unguarded enthusiasm for a parcel of old vines they’ve nurtured for decades. These conversations are what make our job what it is.

At Lea & Sandeman, buying directly from producers is baked into our identity. From the beginning, wines were shipped directly from domaines. Today, more than 90% of our range comes through relationships built and maintained with the people who make the wine. No intermediaries.

The practical benefits are clear. Cutting out the middle man – and we mean this entirely without prejudice to agents, who do excellent work – gives us greater control over costs and, crucially, over our own stocks. We are not at the mercy of someone else’s allocations or commercial priorities. When we commit to a producer, it is because we believe in what it is making, not because it comes bundled with something else.

A wine is on our shelves because we genuinely want it there. That simple principle matters enormously to what we do and to the trust our customers place in us.

Of course there are frustrations. Buying from a UK warehouse for next-day delivery is wonderfully stress free. Buying direct means ordering by the pallet – ideally several at a time – to offset ever-rising shipping costs. Stock books can look heavy; cash flow can be squeezed and forecasting run rates remains an inexact science. Yet we love it. It works for us because it reflects who we are, not because it is a model we think everyone should adopt.

The bigger challenge is scale. We work with hundreds of producers, and these are not transactional relationships. Each one demands time and commitment. That means visiting cellars in Piedmont, tramping through vineyards in Oregon, struggling with sat nav in Swartland or sitting around kitchen tables in the northern Rhône. It means actively championing our producers in the UK, not simply stocking their wines. It means thinking carefully about where their wines sit in the market, how they evolve and who is drinking them. There is no one else to pass that responsibility to.

But here is the thing: it is genuinely fun. The thrill of discovering a producer no one else has spotted or being the first to bring a wine to the UK never gets old. There is real pride in offering bottles you cannot find elsewhere. That exclusivity is not about keeping wines to ourselves; it is about the satisfaction of having done the work to find them. Of being truly independent.

Then there are the relationships themselves. We love our winemakers. That is not marketing hyperbole. These are people we have often known for years, sometimes generations. We are more than business partners with these families, and that is a privilege. We know their harvests and worries. There is a particular pleasure in selling wines you have seen develop, crafted by people you understand. This knowledge gives us confidence and authority when talking to customers.

So, to any merchant thinking about the future of their list, I would say this: the wines that define you are rarely the ones you can get everywhere. They are the ones you have to go and find. The travel, the tastings, the relationships, the paperwork, the waiting and the stockholding are not the price of buying direct – they are the point.

In a market where customers increasingly want to know the story behind what is in their glass, that connection has never been more valuable.

In Sancerre, for example, Charles and Patrick began working with Vincent Delaporte in the 1980s. His son Jean-Yves later took the reins and, by the time of my first visit a decade ago, it was Matthieu Delaporte who was in charge. Today, Matthieu has a young family of his own – and so it goes on.

Not just because they are great wines, but because you know what went into making them.