Naked Wines Brand Guidelines: The Norwich Online Merchant Funded by Its “Angels” Since 2008

From Virgin Wines to Naked.

Naked Wines was set up by Rowan Gormley and launched in the UK on 1 December 2008, English Wikipedia says. Its origin story was told by BBC News in March 2017. Gormley grew up in South Africa, trained as an accountant, worked in private equity and then joined the Virgin Group, where, the BBC reported, he proposed the business that became Virgin Money in 1995.

Around 2000 he came up with Virgin Wines, selling wine over what was then a young internet. He told the BBC that the venture made the classic dotcom mistakes and had to cut its workforce sharply and regroup in Norwich, where it turned towards interesting wines from small producers rather than the big brands found in supermarkets. Once profitable, Virgin Wines was sold to the larger UK firm Direct Wines in 2005.

In June 2008, while trying to lead a management buyout of Virgin Wines from Direct Wines, Gormley was dismissed, he told the BBC. Unable to buy the business back, he decided to start a rival; the staff he most wanted to keep followed him, and six months later he launched Naked Wines. The company’s own website still gives a Norwich address.

Angels and winemakers.

The model rests on customers who pay in ahead. The BBC described how members, called “Angels,” pay a monthly direct debit in exchange for lower prices, and how Naked uses that money to pay independent wine producers in advance, so that the winemakers can concentrate on making wine rather than on finding buyers. English Wikipedia describes the same arrangement as customers funding independent winemakers around the world in return for wines at what the company calls wholesale prices.

The winemakers are the face of the brand. The BBC noted that they are profiled at length on the website, that the business is online only, and that customers are encouraged to review each wine, including saying whether they would buy it again; English Wikipedia adds that reviewers score wines out of five and write a short description, which later buyers see on the wine’s page. In April 2012 Harpers reported the launch of an iPhone app that let members chat directly to the winemakers, with tasting notes and video about the wines they had ordered.

The ordering schemes changed early on. English Wikipedia says Naked announced a scheme called Advance Bookings at the London International Wine Fair in March 2010, offering lower prices on wine ordered ahead, and reworked it in May 2011 as Naked Marketplace, in which customers bid on upcoming wines until a minimum volume is reached and the wine is then made available. The BBC added that the company gave away free samples to win customers. It now ships in the UK, the United States and Australia, English Wikipedia says.

That mix of membership, producer stories and customer ratings gives Naked Wines a different register from a high-street merchant: the brand speaks less about a shop and more about the people who make the wine and the members who pay for it in advance.

How wine merchants present themselves.

Wine merchants and alcohol retailers sell a product that shoppers cannot always taste before they pay, so their identities lean on words, place and guidance more than on packaging of their own. A shop name, a fascia and a few lines of handwriting on a card next to a bottle carry much of the work. For a designer, the useful material is what these companies show in public: their shop fronts, shelf cards, tasting areas, catalogues and the corporate pages that explain who founded and who owns them.

The physical shop is the first layer. Some chains began in warehouse-style units where wine was stacked in cases, and later refits moved towards shelving and tasting areas, as Decanter reported of one British chain in 2019. Shelf talkers, the small cards that describe a wine’s style and origin, sit beside the bottles and can be written in a personal, conversational voice. Tasting counters and by-the-glass machines turn part of the shop into a place to try before buying.

Mail-order and online merchants work through a different set of objects: printed catalogues, mixed cases, club mailings and order pages. Their own-label wines, sold under invented names rather than the merchant’s own, are part of the range and are presented much like any producer’s bottle. A founder’s story, such as a first trip to a vineyard or a single van, can be retold in these materials.

Corporate pages fill in the rest: founding dates, changes of ownership, parent groups and, for state retailers, the legal basis on which they operate. This guide uses dated, independent sources for those facts and treats the company’s own descriptions as its own words. The palette and type on each page are an unofficial interpretation chosen for the guide, not a copy of any retailer’s signage, labels or logo.

Bought by Majestic, then named after.

The corporate history took an unusual turn. On 10 April 2015, English Wikipedia says, Naked Wines was bought by Majestic Wine, the Watford-based merchant whose shares had traded on AIM since 1996, and Gormley became chief executive of the combined group; the BBC reported in 2017 that he was running both businesses, and that at Majestic he had raised staffing levels in the shops and let customers buy a single bottle instead of the previous minimum of six. In March 2019 Majestic announced that it would concentrate on its online Naked Wines division and rename the company after it, closing some of its roughly 200 shops, the Echo of Essex reported; staff were to be moved to the Naked brand where possible.

In December 2019 the Majestic shops and its trade arm were sold to Fortress Investment Group, and Majestic Wine plc was renamed Naked Wines plc, so that the former Majestic shareholders became Naked’s shareholders, according to English Wikipedia. The London Stock Exchange lists Naked Wines plc on AIM under the code WINE.

Management changed in the 2020s. Retail Gazette reported in February 2024 that the former AB InBev executive Rodrigo Maza, who had joined as managing director in September 2023, had been promoted to chief executive after his predecessor left in November 2023. Before joining, Maza had launched and scaled online drinks-delivery businesses for AB InBev, the paper said, and a long-serving Naked executive took over as general manager of the UK business. In March 2025 it reported that Gormley had stepped down as non-executive chairman and director with immediate effect, following the launch of a new strategic plan, with the senior independent director stepping in as interim chair; in December 2025 that Jack Pailing had been named chair in July 2025 as the company worked through its turnaround plan.

For a design guide, Naked Wines shows how a wine business can put its producers and members, rather than a shop front, at the centre of its identity. Compare Majestic, its former stablemate, and Laithwaites, the brand of Direct Wines, which owned Virgin Wines from 2005. For this guide we use a vine green, ink and a red with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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