Mirachem is a name with a strong reputation in multiple sectors, from personal care to household goods and – of course – wine.

The wine arm of the organisation is undergoing an exciting transformation, one that befits the importance that it has gained within the company. Enter Wine.mt, a complete rebrand that’s not limited to the launch of a new website, or a simple name-change – it’s introducing wine-lovers to a completely new wine shopping experience.

“When my father founded the business in 1984, we never actually named the wine division. Or any of the others, for that matter. Clients who got in touch would simply ask for the department of the brand they needed,” Nicholai reminisces.

Then, in the year 2000, Nicholai launched the wine division together with his brother. Although this was unexpected, it ended up growing into the most important segment of the company. And, after years of debate and discussion, the division is now starting a new chapter of life as Wine.mt – an online shopping portal, but one that delivers so much more than a ‘click and buy’ experience.

“We’ve always had a corporate site, of course. When COVID hit, like many other businesses we rushed to develop a site that handles online sales. But in reality, our vision for a comprehensive wine platform was born way before that, when people were still wary of buying online. We registered the domain years ago, purposely, as we knew that going forward this would be something that we wanted to focus on. In the US, you’ll find wine.com, which is considered a very important site for wine-lovers - this is exactly what we’re planning for wine.mt,” he elaborates.

Years passed, until the time was judged ripe to invest significantly. Client feedback confirmed the importance of this move, and the decision was taken to create an entirely new site from scratch to mirror the experience that was being planned.

“We had already introduced wine online sales, but the focus was not on building it, and we were very careful not to compete with our own clients, who would be reselling the wines. This meant that our online prices were actually more expensive than what you’d find in a store. Nowadays the concept of competition has changed, and many of our clients are themselves importers. So, we decided it was the right time to invest in making the online experience better, less expensive and definitely more fun for the client,” Nicholai states, adding that online clients were now going to find very competitive price points on the site, as well as regular offers and deals.

The customer journey has been planned to complement the big plans there are for this site. The language, for starters, has changed. Don’t expect the usual stuffy, complex words that typically accompany anything related to wine.

“We’re keeping our messages accessible and user-friendly. The bottom line is that people want to know whether the wine will suit their taste or not. So, this is how we’re approaching it. This also applies to all our social media, whether Facebook, Instagram or Tik-Tok. We want our customers to enjoy their time on the site,” he adds.

To make sure the journey is a smooth one, the site is managed by a full-timer who is “extremely hands-on”. Streamlining, Nicholai says, is an ongoing process and the team is constantly checking for bugs, testing, and identifying areas for improvement.

“We started working on this revamp in 2024. We asked a third-party company to audit the existing site, and they identified a number of gaps and blockages. So, we decided to start with a clean slate. After all, we wanted our clients to know that this is a completely new approach.”

The process was challenging, but fun – especially watching the design and layout evolve from the initial ideas to a final product.

“People just see the front end, but there’s so much going on behind the scenes. We carry out regular market testing to ensure that we’re ticking all of our customers’ expectations. For instance, the unboxing process can be great fun, but not enough importance is given to this in the wine world. So, we’ve created our custom-made packaging, to make the moment you receive your wines a touch more special,” Nicholai says, adding that the strategy is to engage with people not only through the site, but also via tips, videos and other wine-related content on social media.

“We want our clients to enjoy the whole process and to feel like they’re part of the community. We do have more exciting plans, of course, but we don’t like to rush things. Eventually, we want to have wine.mt as a physical shop; we will also be able to deliver to other platforms.”

For now, however, the focus remains on the site itself. And the feedback in the few months since launch has been extremely encouraging.

“Right now, we’re in the first phase of the new generation of our online presence, but this is just the start. Going forward we intend to be everywhere related to wine. Imagine someone tries one of our wines at a restaurant and loves it - we want to reach the stage where they can be linked to buy it online, there and then,” Nicholai enthuses.

The brand’s popular wine events have also been moved under the wine.mt umbrella. A monthly subscription is in the pipeline, where sommeliers will choose the wines based on the client’s palate and liking.

“This is a very popular practice abroad, and we want to see it happening here, too. We’re lucky as the selection we have is quite unique. In fact, some of the producers don’t typically agree to online selling, but we convinced them. There are plenty of innovative elements we plan on introducing to wine.mt. But just as importantly, we’ll back them up with better value and better prices,” Nicholai concludes.