Ep 36: Nicholas Crampton on Selling 16.8 Million Bottles a Year Without Owning Vineyards

Nicholas Crampton has pulled off what many in wine say can’t be done: turning a small redundancy pay out into a multi-million dollar wine juggernaut. As co-founder of Fourth Wave Wines, Nick has mastered the art of “trend-first, retail-ready” wine: spotting shifts in London, Paris or the Hamptons, adapting them to mainstream shelves, and negotiating hard with Australian retail giants like Dan Murphy’s and BWS. The result is a stable of 45 brands, including lighter, sustainable labels like Tread Softly and unapologetically full-flavoured wines like Elephant in the Room.

In this episode, Nick explains why consumer testing is overrated, why Dan Murphy’s functions as his “number one export salesman,” and how Fourth Wave uses packaging, pricing, and design to give boutique ideas mass appeal. We cover natural wine, flavoured sparkling, the rise of Bento for Asian dining, and even high-strength Shiraz under the Mullet brand. It’s a rare look at how a modern wine company thrives not through vineyard pedigree but through brand architecture, ruthless pragmatism, and a nose for what’s coming next. And it's a playbook that can be used in any market.

Meet your host:

Felicity Carter is an award-winning wine and drinks journalist, editor, speaker trainer and content strategist. She led Meininger’s Wine Business International to become the world’s most must-read wine trade magazine, and was founding Executive Editor of The Drop/Pix, which the Wall Street Journal named one of the most trusted sources of wine information. A regular keynote speaker at international events, she was named a 2024 Industry Leader by WineBusiness Monthly.

And Drinks Insider is an award-winning podcast! It has won the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Award in Audio.