In vino veritas

A recent expose of supermarket wine rip-offs and our editor's subsequent blog brought a lively response from the This is Money readership. The satisfying thwop of a released cork is a sound not altogether foreign to our offices - so it's comforting to know that our punters are just as alive to the ethics of how this greatest of unprescribed medicines is sold.

But can I venture that some of the comments betrayed a - how can I put it - price-sensitive approach to wine-shopping. Now, I might get into trouble with the boss here, but wine is one of those things where the money-saving mantra doesn't easily apply. A fool and his money are soon parted, sure, but equally, er ... if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. And they taste awful.

A fascinating piece of market research that emerged in the bogus special-offer wine controversy is that £3.99 is a 'magic price' for shoppers, with industry research showing about 60% of New World wine in the UK is sold at, or below, this level. Now I'll stop short of claiming that British consumers are bringing the wine-con on themselves through parsimony. But I think perhaps it's time we re-evaluated what wine 'should' cost, or what we're prepared to pay.

We've started to realise that chickens shouldn't really cost £2.50 - and that the only way they can be sold at this price is via unacceptably intensive rearing methods and a concomitant decline in quality. We've started to realise that our demand for year-round access to cheap, blemish-free fruit and vegetables has led to mass production of tasteless, characterless high-yield varieties and spectacularly wasteful transportation.

I would argue in a similar vein that we shouldn't expect to get a decent bottle of wine for less than £5 - and that if you really like wine you should be prepared to pay more than that. And indeed there are, in my opinion, very few decent bottles of wine around for less than a fiver - whereas there are hundreds for seven or eight quid.

If we insist on £4 bottles of wine we'll end up with nothing but a few large mass-distributors filling the shelves with bland, obvious new world fruit juices with all the structure and complexity of Sunny Delight. Which to a great extent has happened already.

I can sincerely recommend Matthew Jukes' Wine List as an excellent buying guide for the average punter with minimal knowledge of wine like yours truly. And if you have a Waitrose or an independent merchant nearby then do give it a try rather than remain in the grip of the Asda-Tesco-Sainsbury oligopoly.

Our website is indeed about saving money and spending less - but not necessarily to the detriment of the pleasure principle. If we can spend a little less on the stuff that doesn't provide pleasure in and of itself, then maybe we can spend a little more on the stuff that does?

- Adrian Lowery, This is Money

Comments

[Simon]

The problem with wine in Britain is tax. Small vineyards often either get paid very little, nothing, or in some cases end up paying costs to get their wine in the big stores.
The £3.99 magic price could get you more quality and better conditions for vineyards without the £3 a bottle tax
Also we should be careful about what we wish for - I've noticed a distinct lack of special offers in my local Tesco since the original story came out, so things are now more expensive.

[Dick Conway]

Try the wine in Spain, quality- excellent-price-even better!

Cheers!

[Dick Conway]

Reference my last, also the quality and price of the food is superb.