Headline from The Telegraph, “Wine lovers kick the Blue Nun habit“.
The gist of the story is that sales at £10+ are increasing at a fabulous rate in Tesco while Waitrose’s average wine spend per bottle is £8 and Jeroboam’s is £10.
Great!
So why is the average price of wine still below £4? This is because the main outlets for wine sales are continuing to sell cheap wine at a discount. It is great to hear that Tesco’s sales of wine above £10 increased 75%, but they hardly sold any in the past and now they have created a Fine Wine area. It would be much more interesting to see what their average price per bottle had done over the last few years. I doubt it has increased.
However, it is heartening to hear that a greater number of people are buying a decent quality wine, and, according to the article, finding good wine fashionable rather than elitist. If this is true, and I don’t see hard evidence of the fact, this is a pretty major breakthrough.
Unfortunately there is a long time to go before I quite believe the hyperbole of certain supermarket chains, as quoted in the article:
“Jason Godley, the wine manager for Tesco, said: “Britons used to be perceived by the rest of the world as a nation of beer drinkers, but this is changing fast. Many Brits think nothing about spending £10 for a bottle of wine at a supermarket and if the occasion is really special then perhaps even £100.”
£100 for a bottle of wine in my local Tesco? I think not.
And as for kicking the Blue Nun habit, I think Blue Nun sales figures might dispute that conclusion.
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