Wine lover Stephen Cronk, 60, co-founded the Provençal rosé brands, Maison Mirabeau, with his wife Jeany in 2009. Production started in 2011 with the 2010 vintage. The wines are sold in Waitrose and other major UK supermarkets, as well as Harrods and Harvey Nichols. Turnover has grown from €17,500 in the first year to about €15mn today.
I certainly could not have done this without the support of my wife, or her creative input. We had to make this work as there was no Plan B. There were quite a few things that went wrong in the early days. It seems trivial now, but when we finally received our first order, for 10,000 bottles from Waitrose, the screw caps arrived in gold instead of dark grey. We had to send them back and wait another two months for the right colour. We were behind schedule, but Waitrose supported us throughout.