Introduction
In this case study, we explore how Becki Trembath, General Manager (and third generation of the family to develop the vineyard), and Lucy Winward, Commercial Manager (with a background in viticulture and winemaking), have navigated New Hall Wine Estate’s transformation from a grower-focused operation into a leading producer of premium wines.
Background
New Hall Wine Estate, founded in 1969, is a multi-generational business rooted in a pioneering spirit. Over the past 10 years, the business has undergone a strategic transformation—shifting from an award winning grape supplier to a premium estate winery, producing and marketing its own-label wines at scale. This evolution brought with it new commercial and operational challenges, from managing a growing portfolio of over 18 grape varieties to building a direct-to-consumer brand and navigating the complexities of stock, duty and VAT within a growing team.
Platform selection
As the estate’s wine production increased, the limitations of manual systems became impossible to ignore. “It was a juggling act,” says Becki, General Manager. “A lot of paperwork. A lot of notes. A lot of clipboards. We needed a system where everybody could see things easily.”
New Hall needed a software solution to support this new phase of growth and undertook a lot of research to find the right system for their needs. Becki explained, “We’re quite unique as we make our own produce, so we did a lot of system demos and found some were very focused on warehouse, or purely stock control, with less capabilities on the commercial side. Or they were principally sales systems, and though inexpensive, would have required several systems to fulfil our needs. Or we’d have had to pay a lot for a larger (ERP) system, but acknowledging that we would not use half the features. Wine Hub was a very cost-effective option that covered all our bases.”
Wine Hub gives us complete visibility in one place and it’s saved us so much time. We were all doing different things in different ways, but with Wine Hub it’s one centralised system for everybody, processes are clearly defined and it’s really transparent.
Solution
The adoption of Wine Hub marked a turning point, allowing New Hall to move away from pen-and-paper stock records to a fully integrated system tailored to the needs of a modern wine producer. The estate gained control of – and visibility across – their stockholding, improved operational workflows and established a digital backbone to support both cellar door and broader commercial sales. As a result, the business is better equipped to scale production and also to compete in an increasingly competitive domestic and international wine market.
Manage your stock inventory in real-time
“Wine Hub’s an ‘all-stop’ shop for us,” Lucy explained. “It’s got great stock management. Now we’re making a lot more wine, we’ve got a lot more stock to keep track of, so stock control is a brilliant aspect.”
Lucy discussed the impact Wine Hub has had on stock taking, a process that has transformed from being a major drain on time, to becoming a dynamic and responsive process. “We can compare in real time what’s been sold. I can literally look every ten minutes at the bottle count and do a stock take. That’s the difference, it’s real-time. Whereas otherwise, if you just do monthly stock takes you only see snapshots from one month to another.”
With Wine Hub, stock management has shifted from being a reactive chore to an active, ongoing part of daily operations—giving Lucy and her team the confidence and visibility they need to scale effectively.
Time savings and efficiency
Time efficiency has been one of the biggest benefits of Wine Hub. “It’s saved us a lot of time in so many ways.” Lucy explains, “For example, I can look back on every client and what they bought in which period of time. Before this was all done in a long-winded way.”
Wine Hub also supports the flexibility needed to operate a busy hands-on business. Lucy explains, “I enjoy just popping online during an evening to make sure everything’s been signed off. I can do that at home.”
Contract winemaking
New Hall makes contract wines for other producers, who often want to stagger their collections. Consequently the winery is required to store other people’s wines for extended periods of time. Previously, this quickly became disorganised, “We’d never really had a fool-proof system to keep track of how much was gone, when it went and how what was left, but Wine Hub now enables the team to track client stock and generate delivery notes easily”.
Traceability and transparency
Wine Hub has brought a level of real-time visibility and traceability across all aspects of the business. Lucy explains, “From the very beginning when someone orders a bottle of wine, until the minute it leaves, to the minute we need to pay the duty on it, it’s completely traceable, which is brilliant.”
Implementing a reliable, centralised system has also reshaped how the team communicates and maintains accountability. Simple things like internal notes has become part of how they record actions, updates and audit trails. “We use the internal notes a lot. Even though there is a system generated audit trail, notes means anybody in the office or any other user can see straight away what’s happened.” explains Becki. “Before, it was really hard for us to go back, we’d have to go through folders of paperwork. Now with Wine Hub, we just search for it on the system.”
“We’ve tried to streamline as much as we can and that’s where Wine Hub has really helped – it’s very cost-effective. The reports have been really useful to us – just being able to download (or have scheduled to email) what we’ve sold in that month, who to, and the net price – has saved me a lot of time”.
Logistics and other everyday tasks
Wine producers are under growing pressure to compete for market share, making it more important than ever to stay on top of the day-to-day. With time and resources stretched, tasks need to be quicker, clearer, and easier to manage. Wine Hub has equipped the team with the tools to do just that — enabling sharper data-driven decisions, leaner operations and confident day-to-day management.
Becki explains, although historically margin was not a closely watched KPI, Wine Hub’s reporting has changed that. “I do find myself looking at what the margin is every time I sell something.”
With Wine Hub it’s easy to ‘dip in and out’, as Lucy explains, making it easy and quick to manage orders, process collections and invoices and very importantly be sure everything is signed off at the end of the day.
Lucy details further, “I think the biggest amount of time saved for us is stock-taking. You’ve still got to do the stock-taking but we can compare straight away in real time with what has been sold.” This feature allows New Hall to monitor sales trends instantly, whether during special events like English Wine Week or regular business days, providing invaluable insights for proactive decision-making.
Xero
Prior to Wine Hub, New Hall used Sage with Becki as the single system user, meaning the wider team were unaware of payment status and outstanding invoices. Now with Xero baked into their Wine Hub system, everyone has visibility, “Having that transparency from the account side of things, without giving people full access to everything, has been really useful as well. It’s changed the way we do things, it’s made everything a bit more streamline.” Becki adds “Xero is a very straightforward system compared to Sage. It was quite an easy transition and it is a lot faster.”
Conclusion
Wine Hub has unified New Hall Wine Estate’s operations under a single platform. From reducing admin overhead and streamlining stock control to ensuring compliance with duty and VAT, Wine Hub has become the digital backbone of a modern, growth-minded English wine estate.
Full interview
Watch the full interview with Becki Trembath and Lucy Winward to discover more about the story of New Hall Wine Estate, their journey working in a busy, evolving winery—what’s worked, what hasn’t, what’s ahead and how Wine Hub has helped them along the way.