The truth behind cheap wines

The magazine Which has recently published the result of a survey about supermarkets' promotions and the result were, for me, not surprising. What they found is that in plenty of cases, if not all, the real discount was always different from the one highlighted. They have found that wines advertised as discounted by 50% were not at all discounted or discounted a lot less. Which’s journalists have taken the price of the wine the week before the promotions and after and the reduced price and then compare the two and the reality was that, often, the price before the promotion and the price during the promotion were the same so no discount had been made and the promotions were only used to entail customers.

Wine and healthy food are possibly the only two products where economies of scale apply only to a very limited extent. Wine is made with grapes and grapes are grown in the vineyards, not produced in a factory, and grapes needs to be looked after for one year. If, then we add, that each bottle of wine carries duty for nearly £2.5 and VAT, we can easily see that a bottle of wine is often cheaper than a bottle of coke which is made in a factory from a formula that does not require any human intervention and very little ingredients other than water. During my wine tasting courses I always get asked two questions.

The first question is how grapes can be different. Assuming that all other conditions in which the grapes are grown are the same, each vine can produce more or less grapes, depending on the pruning and the age of the vines. Obviously the more buds, the more fruit, and ultimately less quality. On the other side, less buds, less fruit, better quality. The same happen with the ageing of the vine, older vines produce less grapes of better quality, their roots are deeper, so they suffer less during extreme weather events. Often we see producers having more than a range of different prices and the explanation is all in the grapes, younger grapes, grapes slightly damaged and so on.

Not all grapes get to full ripeness at the same time, and this even happens for grapes within the same vineyards, and should be harvested at different time to produce the best wine possible, however, machine harvesting and big producers do not. A harvesting made picking up all grapes will produce a lower quality wine, and cheaper. Economies of scale, bigger purchasing power and lower prices, can only be applied to the bottles and closures, which have a limited impact on the cost of the wine. So, if the wine is cheap, it mainly due to its quality and not because a supermarket can buy big. If you don't believe me, try and see for yourself. Buy a bottle of cheap wine and another of a more expensive wine. If you think that the cheaper is better or the same than the other, please let me know.

I need to expand this last statement I made. Our philosophy has always been to import small producers because they make great wines and offer better value for money, if we were to drink one of our wines together with a famous and expensive one, our wine will be at least as good as the other, at a cheaper price. Another reason behind supermarket’s cheaper “big” wines, is the vintage. Often, for vintage wines, vintage makes a massive difference, not all vintages are good enough, and in those vintages more conscientious, smaller, producers simply skip it or as it is called, “declass” the wine, a Barolo in a bad vintage becomes a Nebbiolo or a Langhe Rosso.

I’d like to conclude this post with a well-known, yet often forgotten, saying: "If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is."