Tanners Wines

William Tanner, a ship's captain, founded the firm with his brother Henry in 1872, and the fourth generation — chairman James Tanner — runs it today from the Wyle Cop cellars the family took in 1936, parts of which date to the 1490s under a Grade II listing. It is one of the country's proper old independent wine merchants: buying on its own palate, shipping on its own account, with five further shops through the Marches and borders, from Bridgnorth and Hereford to Llandudno and Chester. The Shrewsbury cellars remain the heart, open six days a week.