Supermarket Wines – How to Choose Wisely

Did you know there are three things that a supermarket uses to differentiate itself from the competition? It’s actually an unlikely trio of pet food, baby food and wine.

Wine is a unique category because there is so much choice. There are somewhere between 500-800 wines stocked by a major retailer and that is confusing enough but it is only a snippet of the entirety of the wine world.

In this blog I’m going to tell you the true cost of a bottle of wine, when is a deal not a deal and my advice on the best bargains in the aisles.

I started my career in the wine trade in a supermarket buying team; the year I spent there was an incredible eye opening experience. I then worked for a wine importer, the supermarkets were our customers and we imported wines from around the world and filled up the shelves with the latest half price deal or next big thing.

The wall of wine as it has been coined can be an intimidating and confusing experience.

Supermarket Wines – The True cost of a Bottle of Wine

As a rule of thumb if you took something that was worth £5 and you sold it for £5 every day of the year, then you would sell less than if you said it was worth £10 and sold it at £5 for ¼ of the year and £10 the rest of the year. That is basically how the majority of supermarket deals work. It applies to all categories, not just wine.

So if the illusion that you are saving £5 is broken, do you then not buy any £10 wine because next week it might be £5? This is a problem and is a thoroughly corrosive strategy by retailers that has been wearing thin for a long time. The only advice I can give on this is to go by the old adage “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is” Certainly never buy any wine that you see on units at the end of the aisle at full price and many repeat offenders you will get to know well (Ogio, Mondelli, many new world brands)

If you find a wine you like which is on offer then don’t worry too much about it never being on offer again, if it’s on offer once, it will have a calendar set six months in advance to be on promotion at least four times a year.

Supermarket Wines – Premium Labels

Gifts aside, if you are interested in purely the quality of the wine I really recommend what they call ‘premium own label’ and to a lesser extent ‘own label’. This would be Sainsburys Taste The Difference Range and Sainsbury’s ‘House’ range respectively for example. (All supermarkets have these)

The reason premium own label is so good is because they are often less about silly deals that inevitably lead to inferior quality and more about the wine. The wines are what differentiate that supermarket from another, blends are exclusive and so you won’t be able to get that particular wine anywhere else. They are also a big part of what a supermarket’s product development managers will be working on, these wines are a reflection of their skill and judgement and so they want them to win awards and be written up in the papers by wine journalists. Hence this means they should be of good quality and value. The wines are also designed to be what one would typically expect of a region & be approachable in style. So for example if you like Barossa Shiraz or Macon Villages then you should expect a ‘typical’ style.

The various tiers of own label wines available across all retailers give options to customers

Own label, like Sainsburys ‘House’ or Tesco ‘simply’ are more conscious of market prices. They will, in my experience sacrifice quality on price and are always from some of the very cheapest sources. (Some may say best value but that is often not the way I see it). It’s more of a minefield, you might find something you enjoy but be aware that the actual source is often very difficult to find, sometimes impossible and blends will change regularly, as the market changes make one country cheaper than another.

Other top tips would be to keep an eye out for journalist recommendations. These people taste thousands of wines a year and their recommendations are worth noting. Also the competitions like Decanter or International Wine Challenge are unbiased, blind tasting competitions where quality of the wine is the only thing being judged. If you see the awards on the bottle you know it will be of good quality (though keep a look out for ‘mock’ awards put on by pesky marketers). Final point on this is that the buy 6 save 25% and the like employed by certain retailers is often a very good deal because it gives you the freedom to buy wine you like for ¾ of the price no strings attached.

Supermarket Wines – How is the cost of a bottle made up

Perhaps the most interesting thing that you might not have seen before is the way that the cost of a bottle of wine is made up. The average price of a bottle of wine is a little over £5. Take a look at how that cost is separated out.

Though it looks bad enough with the “Amount left to make the wine” at less than 10% this still looks better than it is because out of that 9% the cost of the bottle, label, closure, carton, producer profit & distributor profit has to be accounted for. The true cost of the wine for a bottle that costs £5 is literally pence.

Therefore if you take a look at the below (last year’s duty figures, it is now £2.05/bottle) you can see how you get a far better deal from spending more. In fact a £10 bottle of wine, should be 5 times better than a £5 bottle of wine.

This however does not take into consideration things like exchange rates (South African wines are phenomenally cheap as a result), market prices (£10 Chateauneuf du Pape is very often £10 wasted) and many big producers are very capable of making inexpensive wines that can be very good. This multiplied by the incredible competition between UK retailers’ means that we Brits can drink extremely cheaply, however the challenge is to drink well and hopefully this blog has gone some way to helping with that.

Supermarket Wines written by Mike Best AIWS, Business Development Manager South East England, Wine & Spirit Education Trust
Please note these views are Mike’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of the WSET.