{"id":647,"date":"2013-08-25T21:14:08","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T20:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=647"},"modified":"2013-08-25T22:04:23","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T21:04:23","slug":"supermarket-malaise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/supermarket-malaise\/","title":{"rendered":"Supermarket malaise?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>No matter how much you wish to support the local economy the necessities of life dictate Supermarket shopping is inevitable, but rather than fill the coffers of any single faceless corporation I favour a rotation system for the grocery shop, rarely returning to the same store within a month. However, while I&#8217;ll take advantage of the BOGOFs and Rollbacks for groceries I&#8217;m finding it harder to find things that pique my curiosity for wine. This was brought home after yesterday&#8217;s traipse around a certain Walmart-owned operation where, after staring at the rows of the usual suspects in the wine aisle, I decided I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to buy anything&#8230;again (I couldn&#8217;t actually recall when I last picked up vino from the aforementioned establishment).<\/p>\n<p>With my curiosity duly piqued I consulted my wine list and looked at the breakdown of purchases to see exactly how much wine I have been buying &#8211; as it&#8217;s an Excel spreadsheet then that&#8217;s a lot easier than you may think!<\/p>\n<p>In the past 12 months I&#8217;ve acquired 120 bottles of wine (16 were for a NEWTS tasting, so I&#8217;ll ignore those from the breakdown, leaving 104). 8 of these were bought while travelling, so that leaves 96 wines purchased within the region &#8211; enough to get a decent percentage breakdown.<\/p>\n<p>Surprisingly (for me at least) only 26 wines were from local independents, with 14 from Majestic and another 19 from warehouse stores Costco and Makro.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/supermarket-malaise\/trolley-wine\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-660\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-660\" alt=\"Trolley Wine\" src=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Trolley-Wine.jpg\" width=\"217\" height=\"172\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Trolley-Wine.jpg 329w, https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Trolley-Wine-189x150.jpg 189w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 217px) 100vw, 217px\" \/><\/a>That leaves 37 bottles, or 35.6%, from supermarket shopping &#8211; averaging 3 a month. That in itself is telling, as I typically visit a supermarket 3-4 times a month and occasionally pick up multiple bottles, meaning on plenty of occasions I can walk past the wine section and not be tempted.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking down the last 37;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Coop: 13 (Average price \u00a38.45. Not that surprising really, the local Coop is the only supermarket in my home town so I often go in during the week for &#8220;top up&#8221; purchases, plus it is renowned for frequent bin-end reductions)<\/li>\n<li>Tesco: 8 (averaging \u00a312.96, but strangely only one Tim Adams offering)<\/li>\n<li>Aldi: 7 (Average price \u00a315.84, mostly from their Christmas &#8220;Fine Wine&#8221; promotion last year)<\/li>\n<li>Waitrose: 3 (average price \u00a310.24)<\/li>\n<li>Morrisons: 5 (average price \u00a313.09, boosted by a 1996 Port)<\/li>\n<li>Lidl: 1 (a relatively tasty Morellino di Scansano for \u00a35.99)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As for the absent names;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>M&amp;S missed out by only a couple of weeks, with my last purchase in August 2012 with the very tasty Ch\u00e2teau Ksara 2009 Clos St. Alphonse at \u00a39.49<\/li>\n<li>ASDA was January 2012 with their Extra Special (Katnook Estate) 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon at \u00a38.48<\/li>\n<li>Sainsburys has to go back to 2011 for the Dr. Loosen 2009 Graacher Himmelreich Riesling Kabinett at \u00a311.99<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Since my average spend on wines from the supermarkets comes to \u00a311.53 a bottle I&#8217;m pushing the boat out when it comes to the average UK consumer <a title=\"Average wine price in UK breaks \u00a35 mark\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thedrinksbusiness.com\/2013\/01\/average-wine-price-in-uk-breaks-5-mark\/\">who only spends \u00a35 a bottle<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you look at what I&#8217;m actually buying the 5 most expensive wines were;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/supermarket-malaise\/aldi\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-659\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-659\" alt=\"Aldi\" src=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Aldi.jpg\" width=\"87\" height=\"102\" \/><\/a>Offley 30 year old Tawny Port. \u00a329.95. Aldi<\/li>\n<li>Warre&#8217;s 1996 Quinta da Cavadinha Port. \u00a321.49. Morrisons<\/li>\n<li>Scala Dei 2006 Cartoixa. \u00a319.99. Tesco<\/li>\n<li>Ch\u00e2teau Marquis d&#8217;Alesme 2004 Becker Margaux. \u00a317.99. Aldi<\/li>\n<li>Tokaji Asz\u00fa 6 Puttonyos 2000. \u00a317.99. Aldi<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the other end of the scale the cheapest 5 were;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>2011 Tavel Rose. \u00a34.99. Aldi<\/li>\n<li>Medici Riccardi 2010 Morellino di Scansano. \u00a35.99. Lidl<\/li>\n<li>Maycas del Limar\u00ed 2009 Syrah Reserva. \u00a35.99. Coop<\/li>\n<li>Montes 2011 Malbec Reserva. \u00a35.99. Coop<\/li>\n<li>Domaine Mayole 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah. \u00a35.99. Waitrose<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So what does this self-indulgent post actually tell me (other than that I&#8217;m probably the only one still reading it by this point!).<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>I need to get into Marks &amp; Spencers more. Their wine selection is undeniably good but I&#8217;ve not purchased a single bottle from them in over a year.<\/li>\n<li>I need to but more Tim Adams wines when I&#8217;m in Tesco next<\/li>\n<li>I should really look harder in the wine section at Sainsbury&#8217;s as I can&#8217;t believe there&#8217;s nothing there to interest me<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve given up on ASDA. Sorry, but yesterday&#8217;s search of the racks was just depressing, especially with all the focus on sub \u00a36 bottles<\/li>\n<li>When I come to do this again next year I&#8217;d like to see more purchases from the local Independents compared to the main supermarkets &#8211; 26 is embarrassing (sorry Alastair, Claire &amp; Mo, Ben, Andrew &amp; Jo, Paddy, Michael, Irwin, Geoff, Paul &amp; Alan, Tony and Marta &#8230;.hangs head in shame).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I was also reminded of the series of posts I did over 5 years ago now for Reign of Terroir on &#8220;<a title=\"Wine buying in the U.K. (Chapter 1 \u2013 Big Supermarkets)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/ukwinebuying1\/\">Wine Buying in the UK<\/a>&#8220;. Re-reading those posts tonight I was surprised that quite a lot of the comments still apply (if you do have a read then remember I was relatively new both to wine and blogging at that time!).<\/p>\n<p>Slainte!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No matter how much you wish to support the local economy the necessities of life dictate Supermarket shopping is inevitable, but rather than fill the coffers of any single faceless corporation I favour a rotation system for the grocery shop, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/supermarket-malaise\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[12,142,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":693,"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.northeastwine.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}