Tag Archives: The Telegraph

bursting the expensive bubble?

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As a further follow up post on the subject of better wines in supermarkets, I see that The Telegraph (online at least) has recycled their previous news story with a funny, and unintended, contrast:

Quote from today’s article – exactly as per the page:

“Sales of bottles costing £10 or more are up 74 per cent in the past two years, said Tesco. The chain is stocking bottles of wine priced at up to £100 each for the first time.

[…] The supermarket’s beer, wine and spirits category manager, Jason Godley, said more shoppers are treating themselves to expensive wines.

“This would never have happened in a British supermarket even a few years ago and it suggests that Brits are fast shaking off their reputation, especially with our European neighbours, as a nation of plonk drinkers,” he said.

• South African brand Arniston Bay is launching wine in resealable pouches.

The pouches will launch in Britain this month, according to The Grocer magazine.”

Presumably those pouches are full of ‘quality’ non-plonk at over £10 then?

Losing the Blue Nun habit?

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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.