The Wine Fact Center

At Classic Wine Direct we’re pretty upfront about what we do – we can’t compete with supermarkets on price so we offer wines from off the beaten track instead. wines are more flavoursome and interesting. However, it can be difficult for wine drinkers to understand the true value of a wine.

wine deals by supermarkets are often rip-offs as confirmed by Pernod Ricard.

The fact that a leading player in the wine business had admitted that consumers were being conned caused many a raised eyebrow.

In effect, Spiret was saying that many of the “half price” deals that you’ll find in your local supermarket/ discount retailer are not in fact deals at all. simply, a bottle reduced from £7.99 to £3.99 is often worth only £3.the first place of 99.

Retailers use a policy called “marking up, only to mark down” where they put a product on sale at a high price in a select number of regional outlets for a long enough time to ensure they can legally claim the product was being sold at that price before then offering it nationwide at a lower ” was/now” price. wine customers will believe they are getting a bargain price. Confused? thats what we think generally.

The industry beleives that the “mass market” wine drinker is obsessed by the £3.having a cheap wine price bracket will make retailers try different marketing tricks.

In Spiret’s mind ’Consumers know they are getting misled … they get used to it. this leads to the wine trade not havng any money.

Spiret’s gives us an inside view of the true tricks in which wine is sold by the big retailers. it gives the impression that big retailers view their customers to be lazy and ignorant.

the wine industry is not the only industry where these marketing practices happen.

Given that supermarkets represent two thirds of wine sales in the UK, these practices also have a direct effect on the public perception of the value of wine.

do they really get a bottle for £7.wine values range from £3.99.99 bottle then it follows that it will be much harder for the independent wine retailer to sell something whose real value is (and always was) £7.99.

this type of marketing leaves it open to all sorts of underhand practices.

However, if the political mood continues to be against discount selling for alcohol, it will be interesting to see how the big retailers find a real price for wines they have knowingly mis-sold for the last 10 years.