Former head of Virgin Wines Rowan Gormley is not impressed at the situation the wine industry finds itself in. The domination of the supermarkets, he says, is detrimental to the consumer, the grower, and of course the wine.

According to Gormley, the wine that makes it to the shelf is overpriced, over-marketed, and over-packaged. Taste is secondary. “A third of the cost is going on marketing”, he says. ”What winemakers would rather be doing is making good wine. And for customers, why pay to be sold to?” As the blurb on the site says: “Naked Wines is an online farmer's market for the kind of winemakers who want to spend their lives making great wine, rather than selling it.”

The company aims to strip off a number of layers, and allow the consumer to connect with the growers, those small-scale lovers of the art from around the world. Back on the site, there’s a distinct social-networking feel. Buyers and sellers alike have a profile, and the surprisingly affordable wine can be recommended to the user in the way products with similar identities are promoted on Amazon or Last.fm

Gormley, who formerly headed up Virgin Wines, led Naked Wines to its pre-launch in November. But all he’ll say about the acrimonious departure, apart from the fact he managed to bring 19 staff along with him, was that there were a lot of ‘limitations’ at Virgin. “People always thought Virgin first and wines second”, he muses.

This time round, creative ideas are flowing. After putting some of his own money into the venture, along with an undisclosed amount from Wein International, he recruited ‘Archangels’ to source the wines: regular people who would have their opinions listened to. As Gormley says, most wine drinkers describe their interest in wine along the lines of “I don’t know much about wine but I know what I like.” And so far, they appear to like Naked Wines and its unique ‘Angels’ concept. Says Gormley of the Christmas period just gone: “We recruited a number of customers, but what we’re really happy about is getting customers to sponsor wine-makers: Over half the people that signed up became angels, so we’re very happy with that.” The angel system is as follows. The winemaker gives away free wine to show you the quality (you pay for delivery), and you try it out. If you like it, you pre-pay a monthly five pounds to your account and the next batch, helping ensure that the maker has a good cash flow.

Where the money for the company comes in, is taking a cut on the sales. And unlike many other businesses, it might not even be a bad time to launch, with sales of wine historically faring well during economic downturns. And with the added bonus of a real connection to the people actually producing the wine, instead of a whole host of middle-men, Naked Wines might be on to something.