Is It Luck? Building Future Chateau From Scratch

What does it actually take to launch a wine brand when you have no money, no traditional wine background, and a category full of rules?In this episode, we sit down with Tom Benn, founder of Future Chateau, to unpack how he built a modern wine brand from scratch, from creating a scrappy first vintage to launching in Selfridges just 10 days after his son was born.Tom shares how his distribution strategy shaped his marketing, why the founder of Pip & Nut told him to lower his standards, and how radio is still having a surprising impact in 2026. We also get into who is actually buying Future Chateau (spoiler: it isn't Gen Z), why so much of the wine category is built around people being afraid of looking stupid, and whether the company's biggest breaks really came down to luck.Plus, Tom explains why he became obsessed with the strength of modern wine, how opening a bottle became a ritual for better evenings, and why your opinion on wine doesn't need to be any more complicated than one question: is it yummy or not yummy?A conversation about building a brand differently, making an intimidating category more accessible, and knowing when "good enough" is exactly what you need to get started.