Supermarket Wine Ripoffs

We've all seen it in the supermarkets – 3 for the price of 2, buy one get one free, £££s off this bottle - £££s off that, special clearance, reduced . . . it goes on and on. But are you actually getting a bargain? Or are you really paying over the odds?

The Guardian reported on this phenomena not so long ago – and they are not the only ones. We are ALL tempted by a bargain and it is estimated that 2/3rds of wine in this country is sold on promotion and 2/3rds of the wine sold in this country is sold by supermarkets. Jon Moramarco of Constellation, the company behind wines such as Banrock Station and Hardy's, said last year that for some brands more than 80% of sales were made at "half price".

The Daily Mail (www.thisismoneyco.uk) brought this problem to readers attention last year and quoted Jean-Manuel Spriet, chief executive of Pernod Ricard UK. His remarks are significant as he is a highly influential figure in the wine industry. His firm owns some of the best-selling wine brands in Britain, such as the Australian Jacob's Creek and the Spanish Campo Viejo. He is concerned about the problem and said that £3.99 - the average figure paid for a bottle of wine in Britain - has become a 'magic price'. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHALF PRICE

He added: “Consumers know they are getting misled … they get used to it. At the end of the day, it just leads to the impoverishment of the wine trade.'

The practice of 'marking up, only to mark down' has been rife for years, according to industry experts. The supermarket pretends to be offering a 'great discount' on a £7.99 bottle of wine, but the real price of the wine is £3.99.”

Mr Spriet said other wine suppliers 'make the wines designed for sale at £3.99, introduce them at a higher price, and then bring the price down They start at £7.99 and are discounted down to half price, which is crazy.'

Getting ripped off makes my blood boil as it not only misleads the customer but promotes cheap wine as “something special” - when it's not. I sell wine through www.bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk which I choose exclusively from small production châteaux who make it to traditional methods and damn good stuff it is too. I have very small margins as I keep the costs as low as possible so that I can introduce people to excellent wines who will hopefully fall in love with them. I don't advertise and I don't con people into thinking they are getting a good wine when they are getting mass produced plonk. With me what you pay for is what you get – no nonsense.

The trouble with buying wine on special offer in a supermarket is that unless you an expert or someone who is prepared to do some supermarket sleuthing you don't know the real value of what you are buying. As Victoria Moore quite rightly points out “today many wine offers are created artificially. They aren't what you'd call genuine promotions at all. By "artificially created" promotions, I mean that the initial price of the wine is set deliberately high, or "plucked from nowhere", so that an impressive-sounding discount can later be applied. So, for example, a wine really worth around £6.50 might first be put on the shelf priced £7.99 and later sold at "20% off" for £6.39 or, if you're lucky, at "25% off" for £5.99.”

It's not just shoppers who are getting a raw deal as Moore says that such is the might of the big retailers that the wine companies are losing out too, particularly the smaller, more individual ones - big brands that produce in bulk and have deep resources can more easily negotiate the perils of the modern retailing jungle. When supermarkets are offering 3 bottles for the price of 2 it is generally the poor producer who is having to pay the bill not the supermarket chain!
This matters not just for those of us who care about dedicated, passionate and hard-working producers (and we do). It is also important because it directly affects what bottles are available for you to put in your trolley, and, ultimately, what you pour into your glass at home.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA3 FOR £10
Moore has investigated further: “Ever swerved instinctively towards a large display of bottles (probably "on promotion") in the middle or end of the aisle? The wine producer will very likely have forked out £10,000-£20,000 for that spot because the statistics say we're more likely to buy from it than go rooting along an anonymous shelf.

Ever been tempted by a mention of a wine in a leaflet? "When I worked for a now defunct supermarket chain," says one buyer, "everything was paid for. If you saw a wine mentioned in the in-store magazine, that was paid for. A recommendation for food and wine on a recipe card? Don't expect that to have come for free. It was advertising. Anywhere you saw wine mentioned in the supermarket, you could expect that to have come into the deal somewhere along the line, whether explicitly or otherwise."

This is not, as far as I am aware, common practice, although Waitrose charges suppliers a "nominal fee of £300" for a mention in its Wine List magazine, and Tesco too takes money "as part of the business plan we have with wineries" to appear in certain spots of the wine magazine that is sent out to customers. It's certainly the case that once they have agreed to a deal, the wine producer can expect to hear the euphemism "support" - which basically means, "Give us some cash if you want us to push your wine" - many, many times.

A couple of big retailers have recently been approaching their wine suppliers to invite them to "share in their success" by "supporting" their future investment and business expansion - which must be a bit like getting a call from Tony Soprano asking if you have anything to donate to Carmela's charity auction. Business is business, of course, and it would be naive to think otherwise. But all these tactics effectively discriminate against the smaller producer, who cannot always compete with the huge marketing budgets of the larger brands. It's harder for them to win a listing in the first place, and if they do get there, they may find it's not worth it, not least because too many shoppers are ensnared by the prominently displayed "promotions", ignoring the boutique wine that is never discounted and thus hidden away on the bottom shelf. The result is less choice for you, the wine drinker.
aaaaBUY ONE GET ONE FREE
There is another buying tactic that might shock wine lovers, and it is this. You can forget the romantic notion that all wine in all supermarkets is discovered by a dedicated wine hound who has driven a battered old car from Bordeaux to the Rheingau to the Veneto, stopping at cellar after cellar truffling out a bargain that will give your tastebuds the best possible treat for the price.”

Well I for one do venture forth and discover beautiful wines and I take great enjoyment in doing so. There is nothing like meeting the people who are so passionate about the wines they make and learning about the traditions and beliefs that they are so proud of. Luckily the internet is changing shopping habits and more people are able to buy directly from wine merchants and wineries – getting REAL bargains!

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