Where do you buy your wine?
The price of everything is rising, so where you buy your wine is worth considering.
Most people choose supermarkets, wine merchants or online - so what are the pros and cons? I work at an independent merchant, but I’ll try to remain neutral!
Supermarkets keep extensive ranges, predominantly well-known brands. Their buying power has made genuinely bad wine a rarity and they offer eye-catching discounts. Quality-wise, they’re about consistency. Big brands draw grapes from vast areas, keeping huge reserves for blending - creating identical products every year.
Small producers, however good, are of little interest - they physically can’t fill supermarket shelves. Most wine is of reasonable quality and there’s lots of lower-price choice. Supermarkets are especially interesting at Christmas, when they may buy and discount quality wines.
Independent merchants focus on unique wines from smaller producers - quality wines reflecting their origin and the year. Rather than being consistent, wines vary annually according to weather, growing conditions and winemaking techniques. This is why vintages are so important in quality wine.
You generally won’t find big brand names and if you imagine you’re in a supermarket wine aisle, prices below thigh level probably aren’t available. Merchants often supply the licensed trade and need quality, unique wine (nobody in a restaurant wants to be served a bottle they can buy in the supermarket). Tax alone on any bottle of wine starts at £2.88 - that’s before transport, bottling or profit, so a £5 bottle contains wine worth 30 to 50p!! Luckily those costs apply to all wine, so with more expensive bottles the value of the actual wine increases dramatically. 50p worth in a £5 bottle becomes more like £1.50 worth in a £6 bottle - three times better!
Mail order offers the ultimate in convenience, of course, with many companies using the same business model - what my Dad called the ‘Colemans Mustard Principle’ - e.g. making money from what’s left over! A typical online purchase is 12 bottles - usually 2 or more of each bottle. If you don’t like something - or it’s just OK - the chances are it’ll be consigned to a cupboard! Most companies offer returns, but few people take this up. Quality is variable but tends to be mid-range; more expensive than average supermarket bottles but less expensive than a merchant.
In summary, supermarkets dominate cheap and cheerful (and Christmas fizz) with wines intended for drinking immediately. Mail order is convenient and a bit of a lucky-dip, which can be great fun. Merchants generally offer the highest quality, often age-worthy and most expensive wines, but also specialist knowledge and advice - food pairings for example - and the most personal experience. As they say on TV - the choice is yours!
By Dave Anning, SW Bottle Shop