Berry Bros. & Rudd Today

The Board of Berry Bros. & Rudd today consists of Chairman Simon Berry, Deputy Chairman Elizabeth Rudd, Managing Director Hugh Sturges, and Non Executive Directors,  Mr J. R. Rudd, Mr Edward Rudd, Mr David Berry Green, Sir Simon Robertson, Mr Philip Bowman and Mr Richard Moyse.

The Georgian ambiance of Number Three St James's Street and Berrys uniquely historic image disguise the modern business methods and systems which now hide behind the façade. The physical atmosphere of oak panelling and quill pens may remain but in fact the business is conducted and controlled in a very up-to-date fashion.

On the wine side, a temperature-controlled wine cellar was built in Basingstoke in 1967 and since then the premises have been greatly extended to include a bonded section, additional offices, a modern tasting room and a retail shop.

The Widow Bourne and William Pickering, who started humbly enough under the sign of the Coffee Mill, may take comfort in the thought that Berrys huge expansion over the years has not been at the expense of its unique character or its reputation.

Berrys acknowledges the enormous part played in its prosperity by "Cutty Sark" but it also recognises the value of its traditional approach to wine. It sells not on cut prices or catchpenny appeals but on merit, value and quality of service. This is an approach epitomised by the firm's tasting panel, which makes visits to many overseas vineyards and meets regularly to taste and choose or reject many hundreds of different wines each year.

"If you penetrate behind the famous shop-front at 3, St James's Street you find that Berry Bros. are a firm of surprising contrasts. The list of their clientele since 1698 reads like the index to a politico-social history of England: yet, today any number of regular customers drop in and take away a bottle or two in a carrier bag. Moreover they receive as warm a welcome as a millionaire restocking his cellar"
(The Times)