In 1962, changes to retail licensing laws allowed supermarkets to begin selling alcohol. Ten years later, supermarket wine sales had grown from 5% of off-trade wine, beer and spirits to 25%, this staggering expansion was largely attributable to Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-Op, who were first to exploit an aspirational middle class increasingly preoccupied with continental luxuries. This preoccupation was exaggerated by Common Market membership in 1973, which also marked the genesis of own-label supermarket wines—by 2008, these predominately budget wines would make up 40% of all supermarket wine sales.
The supermarket foray into wine retail was met with great enthusiasm by eager consumers. Nevertheless, the shelves were mostly filled with industrial plonk, epitomised by 3.5 million bottles sold annually of off-dry German horror, Blue Nun. This was true until at least 1985, when wine retailer, Simon Loftus described supermarket own-label ranges—which were dominated by French, German, and Spanish wines—as offering the ‘dull decency of wines blended for general acceptability’. Soon after, the advent of New World wines took supermarkets by storm, attracted by their reliability, fruit-forward style, and consumer-friendly labelling. By 1996, Australia had overtaken France as the largest supplier of wine to the UK off-trade market, and by 2000, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, and New Zealand surged in popularity, heavily promoted by supermarkets through own-label partnerships and exclusive import deals. These growing wine ranges coincided with the evolution of supermarkets from convenience-focused retailers into dominant one-stop shops which ravaged specialist retailers like butchers, greengrocers—and off-licences, consolidating shopping trips into weekly supermarket visits, and fundamentally altering the face of English high streets forever. Consequently, by 2012, supermarkets accounted for a staggering 81% of off-trade wine sales.
Until 2010, the “Big Four” supermarkets dominated UK grocery sales, largely competing on product range, convenience, and loyalty schemes. But, between 2011 and 2013, budget German grocers, Aldi and Lidl began gaining traction in the UK, supercharged by the lingering effects of the 2008 financial crisis. Then, in 2014, Tesco announced significant price cuts and changes to product ranges in response to falling profits, Sainsbury’s and Asda followed suit and by 2017, intense price wars defined UK grocery. These price wars extend to wine retail, where despite successive efforts to sell fine wines—Marks & Spencer’s Connoisseur range, Sainsbury’s Vintage Selection and so on—shelves were quickly filled with discount plonk, so much so that at a 2022 Tesco trade tasting, 68 new wines of 143 on show were priced at under £4 a bottle
To begin with, supermarkets had been met with excitement, British wine writer, Pamela Vandyke Price was jubilant about this new market which she thought might help make wine drinking part of everyday life. But excitement soon waned when merchants, writers and journalists realised that despite an initial increase in wine consumption, the same retailers doing small, family-owned grocery stores out of business were not a rising tide, even if they worked hard to promote wine insofar as the law permitted. By 2022, apathy reached its peak; following a supermarket trade tasting that year, Jancis Robinson MW wrote that ‘this century … much of the wine on offer on British supermarket shelves has been relatively lacklustre, dominated by the need to shave pennies off the selling price’. A year later, high street staple Oddbins closed its last store, a victim in part of mounting pressure from supermarkets. Nevertheless, amidst a backdrop of falling wine sales, supermarkets—most notably, the German discount retailers—soon began a fresh campaign to present themselves as purveyors of quality wine, exploiting new media, including in the form of emerging ‘wine influencers’. The German discounters also went further, hiring trusted Masters of Wine to cheerlead polished ranges and ‘dispel the misconception that quality wine comes with a hefty price tag’.
Whilst respected industry experts peddling cheap industrial plonk at the industry’s expense is a great shame, it is with ‘vinfluencers’ that budget supermarket wine has made its greatest leap in contemporary wine media. Arguing that falling wine sales were attributable to an anachronistic and inaccessible industry failing to attract ‘ordinary’ consumers and lucrative millennials, vinfluencers presented themselves as fresh, accessible voices prepared to rescue wine. Importantly, many were not wine lovers, even today there are vinfluencers and ‘wine pros’ who haven’t spent a dime on wine travel, have never stepped foot inside a winery, have wine ‘collections’ consisting exclusively of press samples, and who can’t tell you where Pessac-Léognan is. This indifference makes them rich pickings for supermarkets and press agencies flogging discount freebies and paid sponsorships. So does their commendable social media success, which has seen many amass large followings. Sadly, a great deal of this vast reach is in service of budget wine, including endless tedious ‘hacks’ and countless vapid Reels promoting ‘Sunday Dinner Red Wines’ for £5.99 and Spanish sparkling for £4.99 from Lidl, Sangiovese for £6.75 at Sainsbury’s, and four wines under £6 at Morrisons. Depressingly, this content works—these same personalities regularly invoke mania for ‘supermarket dupes’, emptying shelves of budget imitations.
Upon interrogation, vinfluencers claim their adulation for supermarkets is for the greater good, hypothesising that; by educating supermarket shoppers they will inspire them to spend more, eventually undergoing a Damascene conversion, becoming burgeoning wine lovers rushing to a local independent. They also argue that amidst a cost of living crisis, offering cheap ‘value’ options is itself a selfless ethical pursuit; or that, faced with falling wine sales, broadening the net and making wine more accessible might help wine avoid imminent extinction. Of course, all this is for the birds. The same people buying adulterated plonk for £4.99 (only several pence of wine after taxes and costs!) will not be convinced to visit their local independent or specialist retailer (e.g., Majestic) and spend significantly more, nor are they likely to discover a newfound love of wine in Morrison’s booze aisle—the supermarkets already command huge market share, we no longer rely on them to unearth new drinkers, nor are they best placed to do so. As for a cost of living crisis, rising costs and shrinking budgets should not demand winegrowers cut costs, reduce standards and sacrifice their livelihoods for wines to be sold as loss leaders, wine is inherently more costly to produce than other popular alcoholic beverages. If your purse is strapped, buy a cheaper alternative. Finally, wine sales may well be declining, but there’s strong evidence that it is soulless plonk suffering most at the hands of changing trends as consumers opt for more characterful wines with a story to tell.
Far from benefiting the industry, budget wine lines the pockets of greedy multinationals desperate to increase their market share and bump up their profits. Worst of all, by flogging mass-produced generic wines from popular appellations at discount prices—often so low the sales are loss leaders—supermarkets create unrealistic price expectations which make quality wines offered by thoughtful wine merchants appear drastically overpriced. These underhand tactics have depressed prices and crowded out independents, who face increasingly challenging economic conditions. Beyond the bland insipid bottles adorning the middle shelves, ‘premium’ supermarket wines are equally uninteresting and largely overpriced, buyers would be much better off visiting a specialist retailer where staff will help buyers find suitable, quality wine at reasonable prices which help support considerate and sustainable agronomy and better business practices. Fortunately, changing consumer preferences are stacked in favour of quality wine, and despite the supermarket’s efforts to hoodwink drinkers, the public is seeking premium wines and authentic experiences. Peddling budget wine won’t entice new crowds, and the sooner we abandon the fantasy that supermarket shoppers are just one budget Romanian red away from a EuroCave and a WSET Diploma the better. The future is marrying wine and lifestyle, shopping with independent retailers, drinking in local wine bars, and enjoying characterful, fine wine in familiar settings. Supermarket wine is not our friend, and neither are those who peddle it.