I don’t suppose it occurred to many of those who voted for Brexit that their wine would be quite a bit more expensive as a result (maybe it was a small price to pay for “taking back control”) but if you’ve been scanning the shelves, you’ll be aware that prices have been creeping up.
Bordeaux chateau owner Gavin Quinney, for example (bauduc.com), has already had to increase the price of his 2015 Trois Hectares Blanc (12.5% abv) from £9.95 last December to £11 due to the fall in the value of the pound (it’s still well worth it at that price). Others will surreptitiously reduce the quality of the liquid in the bottle – what Quinney refers to as the “Toblerone effect”.
The situation is compounded by the problem of artificially inflated or “fake prices”, as I guess we must call them these days, which are designed to make discounts look more dramatic. You can pretty well bet that if you regularly get “up to” 33% off a bottle, as you can at Majestic, which has adopted a particularly aggressive discounting stance since its tie-up with Naked Wines, then the original price was inflated. They claim a £2.50 saving on Oyster Bay sauvignon blanc (13% abv), for instance, reducing it to £7.49 at the time of writing if you buy six bottles, but that’s not far off the normal price you pay at Asda and Bargain Booze. (Sainsbury’s has a similar deal at the moment, though it normally charges £9.99.)
That’s not to say discounts are never genuine. Chateau Maris Les Vieilles Vignes 2015 Minervois – a lush, full-bodied Languedoc red (14.5% abv) which is currently down from £10.99 to £8.24 at Waitrose – wouldn’t be a bad buy at the full price, though given that it’s the second period on promotion since October, it does suggest it should be more like £9.50.
Aldi and Lidl don’t go in for heavy discounting, but having established in the public mind that they always undercut their bigger rivals, their prices don’t always bear that out, particularly on pricier wines. Aldi sells the 2011 vintage of Chateau Tour de Pez (13% abv), for instance, at £16.99 if you buy six bottles. An indie called John Hattersley in Bakewell doesn’t charge much more, at £17.50.
The answer, as ever, is to shop around and keep an eye open for bargains, such as the Alianca Dao Reserva 2013 (13.5% abv), an appealing supple, juicy Portuguese red you can pick up for £7.80 at Booths and £7.99 at Hedley Wright, but which will set you back £9 at Highbury Vintners. And buy your favourite wines on promotion, not when they’re full price.
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