Tag Archives: supermarket wine

Wine drinkers to supermarkets: We want better, more affordable wine

Wione bottles on store shelf
“What? No Winking Owl?”

New study shows we’re not happy with supermarket private label wine

This is the first of two parts looking at trends for wine sold in supermarkets and convenience stores, since not all wine is sold at Costco, Total Wine, and your local retailer. Today, part I: Supermarket private label wine. Friday, part II: Convenience store wine sales.

A friend emailed me recently, with a link to all the wonderful cheap wines Aldi sells in some of its European stores. “Have you seen any of these wines in your local Aldi?,” he wrote, and most unhappily.

Nope, I told him, and we commiserated about the poor choices for supermarket private label wine in the U.S. (Winking Owl!).

But, it turns out, we’re not alone in our disappointment with supermarket private labels — the wines that can only be bought at specific retailers, like Kirkland at Costco and Two-buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s.

A recent study looking at private label supermarket products found that shoppers were mostly satisfied with the quality and prices of store-brand toilet paper, ketchup, and the like. One of the few things that didn’t do well?

Private label wine and alcohol.

In the Food Marketing Institute report, almost half of frequent private brand shoppers preferred to buy national brand alcohol; in fact, they were more likely to buy store pet food and vitamins than they were store brand wine. And why was that? Because, as one shopper said, “Stock up on alcoholic beverages.” In other words, a couple of cases of Winking Owl (or its equivalent) stacked at the end of the aisle is not enough.

This was not supposed to happen. A couple of years before the pandemic, the Private Label Manufacturer’s Association launched a campaign to improve the quality and pricing of those wines (in which I played a tiny, tiny part). But the pandemic and the death of the PLMA president Brian Sharoff put an end to that.

So what are we stuck with? Something like this $4 wine from Aldi, which really isn’t even worth $4.

Photo:”lotta wine” by rick is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

 

Winebits 743: Local wine, best-selling wine, technology

tash 80
It was difficult enough writing a football game story on this; can’t imagine what tasting notes would have been like.

This week’s wine news: A study finds local wine may not be all that local, plus supermarket wine dominates a best-seller list and the Trash-80, which helped the WC get to where he is today

• Not so local: Canadian researchers have found that wine drinkers define local wine differently than they do local food. The study, from Brock University, said a majority of wine drinkers consider a wine local if it comes from anywhere in North America and Canada. This is in marked contrast to local food, where a majority of those surveyed said local was with 100 km (62 miles) of their home. This is not surprising, given what we learned during Drink Local. It was always difficult to get food writers and bloggers interested in the project; they seemed to think that wine wasn’t local the way that food was. It was one thing to actually see the pig that would be turned into that night’s pork shoulder roast and another to understand that wine could be local when grapes were just grapes. It’s worth noting, as Becca Yeamans does in her analysis of the study, that this is not necessarily a representative sample of all wine drinkers. Still, it does take a step in figuring out what’s going on with the perception of local wine.

• Hot brands: A host of supermarket wine brands heads this year’s Hot Brands, compiled by the company that owns the Wine Spectator. Among the wines are Josh Cellars, Bota Box Nighthawk, Barefoot Fruitscato, Bread & Butter, Stella Rosa, La Marca, 19 Crimes, Kim Crawford, and Santa Margherita. The formula to identify a Hot Brand is complicated, but the gist is that these wines showed tremendous growth at a time when wine itself did not. And what do they have in common, save for their lower prices? Almost all are supermarket brands, which shows again how much the wine business is changing.

• High-tech: John Roach, the man who helped make the personal computer ubiquitous — and who sent the WC down the rabbit hole with the portable TRS-80 100 — died last week. I mention it here because much of what the post-modern world has evolved into, including the blog, depends on Roach’s vision. The Trash-80, as we called it, was not the first personal computer, but the portable version was the first I used. Originally, it had acoustic couplers, so I had to find a pay phone to file a story. The upgraded version had a phone jack, so at least that part was easy. The rest was never easy, and that includes reading what I typed on that impossibly small screen.

Winebits 717: Winespeak, DoorDash, supermarket wine

winespeak
“OK, now let’s make this clear — toasty and oaky are out.”

This week’s wine news: Wine Scholars Guild says it will try to make winespeak easier to understand. Plus, DoorDash expands booze delivery and a look at the supermarket wine store of the future.

• No more toasty and oaky? The Wine Scholar Guild, a leading wine education group, says it wants to change the way we talk about wine. Or, at least I think that’s what it wants to do. The story describing the effort is so full of PR-speak, education-speak, and some -speak that I couldn’t decipher, that it’s difficult to say for sure. To quote: The project would “empower the individual to taste and describe wine with an enriched and universal lexicon.” In addition, it would “dive deeper into assessing the qualities of a wine’s building blocks” and look “into the nature of a wine’s personality.” Sigh. This is probably worth a separate post on the blog; I’ll try to follow up and see if I can make any sense of it.

• Bring on the booze: DoorDash, the restaurant delivery  service that has branched out to groceries and clothing, is expanding its alcohol delivery effort. Customers will be able to place orders for beer, wine, and spirits (with or without food) from participating local restaurants and supermarkets in select markets in 20 states. We’ll ignore for a moment the company’s infamous reputation (and that the Wine Curmudgeon has all but stopped using it, since half my orders are wrong in some way). Instead, let’s focus on what this news means: Another chink in the armor that restricts alcohol sales in the U.S. That the company would have done this two years ago is doubtful. But the pandemic changed all that, and that DoorDash thinks it can make money with wine delivery speaks volumes.

• Even in Iowa: We’ve written a lot on the blog about how important supermarkets are to the future of wine, and here’s one more example — a regional grocer has built an upscale market in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, with “a Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits department offering a walk-in beer cooler, a walk-in wine room and a walk-in humidor.” In Iowa? In addition, the story reports that building the store required a $26 million investment, and that it is its “first entirely reimagined grocery store.” What does that say about what Hy-Vee’s bosses think about selling wine in supermarkets?

barefoot wine

Barefoot wine review 2021: Merlot and Crisp White Spritzer

barefoot wine
The guy in the middle must have tasted the Crisp White Spritzer.

• Barefoot wine (again): Value or just cheap?
• Barefoot wine: Why it’s so popular

Barefoot wine review 2021: A merlot that mostly tastes like grape juice, and a spritzer that takes sugar water where it’s never been before

The blog’s 14th annual Barefoot review focuses on the traditional and the au courant — merlot, about as old-fashioned as it gets, and a Crisp White Spritzer, which (I assume) is supposed to compete with trendy hard seltzers. The former tastes like most Barefoot wine — soft, just enough sweet, and devoid of varietal character. The latter breaks new ground — a cross between a hard seltzer and the infamous wine coolers of the 1980s.

The non-vintage merlot ($6, purchased, 13.3%) has a California appellation, and I had high hopes for it. The merlot has often been the most wine-like of the Barefoots, and it almost made the $10 Hall of Fame in the blog’s early days. But no such luck. This was formula winemaking using poor quality grapes. Each component was exactly where it should be — the sweetness (not quite as sweet as the red Apothic or Menage a Trois); generic fruitiness (think grape juice that isn’t tart); a murky finish common in this kind of red wine; and no tannins or acidity. In other words, cheap, smooth wine for people who want that.

I also had hopes for the Crisp White Spritzer ($6, purchased, 5.5%). Maybe it would be something like a vinho verde? No such luck. This isn’t legally wine, so it has ingredient and nutritional labeling. Hence, everything you need to know about the product is on the label — made with carbonated water, something called “grape wine,” and cane sugar. Almost one-quarter of its calories come from “added sugars.” So sweet, sweet, sweet, and not crisp by any stretch of the imagination. It’s so sweet, in fact, that it’s almost impossible to drink on its own. Mix with vodka or cranberry juice (or both), and hope for the best.

Photo: Sylvane, using a Creative Commons license

Blog associate editor Churro contributed to this post

More Barefoot wine reviews:
• Barefoot wine review 2020
• Barefoot wine review 2019
• Barefoot wine review 2018

Buying supermarket wine during the pandemic

supermarket wine
Quick. … we need to buy more wine at the supermarket because it’s a pandemic.

Six tips to make sure you get your money’s worth at the supermarket Great Wall of Wine

Supermarket wine was one of the big winners during the pandemic, with more of us buying it from the supermarket Great Wall of Wine than ever before. As a high-ranking official at a top Italian producer told me: “Multiple shopping stops are not happening, so instead of going to the grocery store, then to the fine wine shop, butcher, cheese monger, and so forth, people are getting everything in grocery stores.”

And one leading wine trade magazine expects that to continue, with double-digit sales growth perhaps being part of the new normal.

Which leads to a particularly Wine Curmudgeonly dilemma: How does one buy cheap wine that offers both value and quality in the supermarket – and especially when so much supermarket wine seems to be more or less the same? As noted here many times, the biggest half dozen or so U.S. producers make most of the wine supermarkets sell.

So how do you avoid the stuff that looks and tastes the same as the other stuff? Consider these six tips:

• Check the website. It may not say the actual company’s name on the label, and most don’t. But the company’s website always does. No, I don’t know why this is, and neither did the researcher of a seminal Big Wine study.

• Alcohol percentage. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it’s true often enough to keep in mind. Many Big Wine products say 13.5 percent even if the alcohol isn’t 13.5 percent. The law allows this, and it’s easier for tax, regulatory, and production reasons to do it. Wines from smaller producers tend to be more precise.

• Look for something other than the usual grapes, so petite sirah instead of cabernet sauvignon and viognier instead of chardonnay.

• Imported roses. Yes, the tariff has hurt pricing, but they’re still mostly what they’re supposed to be. Some domestic roses, on the other hand, are creeping up the sweetness ladder – and no, I don’t know why that is, either.

• New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Some of the least expensive wines aren’t especially well made, but those in the $10 to $15 range are well-made, varietally correct,  and offer value.

Winebits 689: Treasury cheap wines, Steven Spurrier, Grocery Outlet

Treasury cheap wine
Are these masstige wines or not?

This week’s wine news: Treasury dumps its cheap wines, plus Judgment of Paris’ Steven Spurrier dies and Grocery Outlet sales soar

• So long, cheap wine: The Wine Curmudgeon has long been baffled by Treasury Wine Estates’ business model, which seems to change almost as often I bellyache about overpriced wine. Masstige wines, anyone? The latest Treasury business zag? Australia’s Treasury, which is the sixth biggest U.S. producer through its ownership of Beringer and affiliated labels like Main & Vine and Founders’ Estate, as well as pricier brands like Sterling, Beaulieu, and Chateau St. Jean, will “license” the Beringer Main & Vine and Founders’ Estate wines, plus Coastal Estates and Meridian, to The Wine Group. No, I’m not exactly sure what licensing means, save as a way to dump the labels without the federal anti-trust investigation that would follow a sale. Is this a good idea? Who knows? Treasury has been under tremendous pressure from analysts to do something or other to boost profits, and this strikes me as other. The winner will be The Wine Group, home to Franzia and Cupcake, which picks up some decent-selling supermarket wines to compete with E&J Gallo after Gallo added Constellation Brads’ cheap wines earlier this year.

• Steven Spurrier, 1941-2021: Steven Spurrier, the British wine writer whose 1976 Judgment of Paris transformed the wine world, died last week. He was 79. Spurrier was a writer, educator, and merchant, but was best known for The Judgment. That’s when a group of wines from a little known region called California bested some of France’s greatest wines in a competition using French judges. The result was the beginning of the California wine business as we know it, and Napa, Sonoma, and the rest would look much different today if not for the winning The Judgment. Warren Winiarski, who made the winning cabernet sauvignon at the competition, has always enjoyed sharing the story.

• Grocery Outlet sales: Grocery Outlet, the discount supermarket chain that may be the last best hope for cheap, quality supermarket wine, announced more spectacular numbers last week. Sales for fiscal 2020 jumped almost 25 percent from the same period in 2019, and the company expects to have 400 stores across the U.S. by the end of 2021. Currently, it’s in eight states, most on the west coast. One analyst, after seeing the results, said the chain remains a top long-term growth company.

Supermarket wine sales during the pandemic

supermarket wine
I need more Barefoot, Josh Cellars, Bota Box, and Stella Rosa!

We’re probably buying more supermarket wine during the pandemic, though we have less to choose from – and we’re likely drinking it with a home-cooked dinner

Supermarket wine seems to be thriving during the pandemic, as we make fewer trips and buy more items – including wine – at one store instead of splitting the trip into two or three stops.

Why seems? Because, as with so many things wine, there are few reliable statistics. As one of the country’s leading supermarket analysts told me, “I’ve heard that’s true, and a lot of people are talking about it, but I haven’t actually seen any numbers about it.”

So what do we know?

• Sales appear to increasing. Kroger reported in December that sauvignon blanc was its fourth most popular purchase in 2020, ahead of bags of chocolate candies and burger patties. In addition, noted the annual Wine Business Monthly study, four supermarket brands — Josh Cellars, Barefoot, Stella Rosa, and Bota — grew significantly in 2020. Stella Rosa, a sweet red, was up almost 108 percent.

• We could buying more private label supermarket wine, according to  the Wine Business Monthly study. This ties into a 2020 food industry report that “three in 10 shoppers said they were buying more store brands than before the pandemic,” and while the report doesn’t mention wine, it does talk about increased demand for all private label products.

• Because price still matters, despite premiumization. The New York Times reported in September that “shoppers are being more economical,” and if it’s true for beans and laundry detergent, it may well be true for wine. That’s my sense, anyway, and especially as I struggle to find cheap wine regularly stocked on store shelves. My Aldi, for example, is regularly sold out of my favorite cheap wines.

• We’re cooking more at home, and it looks like this will continue after the pandemic winds down. And that almost certainly means more supermarket wine sales, as shoppers pick up wine to go with dinner. I was skeptical when I saw this report about home cooking this fall, but more analysts say it looks to be the case. Kroger’s chairman told the Times: “People are moving on to more complex cooking, and we don’t see that going away.”

• Fewer wines to choose from when we do buy in a supermarket, by almost five percent, according to Nielsen. This is part of a larger trend, as retailers cut back on inventory in all departments. Interestingly, that five percent was one of the smallest decreases among the 13 categories in the survey. Is this is another hint at wine’s importance to supermarkets during the pandemic?

• More on-line wine sales. Combine better supermarket technology with relaxed state laws, and supermarket on-line sales probably increased, too. I can buy via Instacart or directly from the retailer’s at half a dozen Dallas grocers. In 2019, there were maybe a couple.