Remember when it was a treat to have a sherry at Christmas? That was as close as many of us got to wine way back. Now wine is everywhere as someone pointed out to me the other day, when the 60’s and 70’s situation dramas etc are on and they are sat around drinking wine, it is a reflection of today’s society not yesterday’s. 74% of us say that wine is our favourite drink according to the WSTA. But which one?
Many suppliers have set their stalls out to be jacks of all wine trade, but masters of none. The wine industry is a fragmented industry with 100’s of thousands of producers and ‘000s of potential UK suppliers. Each purveyor who sells wine says they are the best, and the one down the road is not quite so good. If you have spirits, beer, soft drinks and god knows what else to buy who on earth do I believe?
Answer – the specialist!
Who or what is a specialist – that’s a term open to interpretation, if ever I came across one. The dictionary definition is ‘a person who concentrates primarily on a particular subject or activity; a person highly skilled in a specific and restricted field.’ Hmm well that’s a bit broad – I’ve been called a specialist in wine all my working life, but now it is a different kind of specialism that is required.
A hypothesis for the wine business is that there are two types of specialist – wine production region specialists and UK regional specialists by customers. Both of these formats seem to be growing significantly currently with the national providers consolidating into fewer larger entities.
From a wine trade perspective, in the UK there used to be the London Wine Trade Fair, then the Australia Day tastings, New Zealand followed, South African, Chilean, Argentinean, French, German, Californian and so on. For a while they had their moments. The Australia Day tastings at Lords for many years was the event. Now the events have splintered into 10’s if not hundreds of different ones with different regions of France hosting events, Soave, Tuscany, Cremant, Rioja and even a Vineyards of Hampshire tasting. Not long since it would not have been seen to be worthwhile to host many of these. They would have been regarded as too niche, microscopic views that not enough people would be interested in.
Consumers have thrown off the shackles of snobbery and seem to be saying that we will try anything so long as you, as the server, recommend it (i.e. have tried it and can verify its quality) and you are not asking me to risk my house on it. Serve it by the glass and I’ll try one, whatever it is – Albarino, Alvarino (they are the same grape one enunciation from N.Spain, the latter from Portugal), Gamay or Kekfrankos (both grape varieties one makes Beaujolais, one from Hungary) or made in Ecuador, Paraguay, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Georgia or China. All these countries produce wine.
And then there are the regions that used to be the commoditised ones – Frascati, Cotes du Rhone, Soave, even Australia. It is possible to conceive that some of them still are. Cotes du Rhone is listed in just about every supermarket, as is Australian Red and White in various forms. Soave used to be the white trading product alongside Hock and Liebfraumilch as the item that was benchmarked on price by most supermarkets. A spat on price for these items would often involve a race to the bottom with only the consumer feeling happy at the ridiculously low price paid; never mind the quality.
It seems that now Soave and the many other ‘commoditised’ regions has a different story to tell and they are telling it. Of course, they always did have the stories to tell, it was just that too few were interested. So the question when we go along these lines is how to find these nuggets of difference? The answer is probably found in the growth of the specialist importer who has personality, is not afraid to sell it and an eye for something different.
There are many importers now specialising in particular regions, where their knowledge reflects the stories to be told and their specific detail on the ground. One annual survey of independent retailers highlighted the fact that this years results featured producers both home and abroad, as their respondents favoured suppliers.
The other aspect of the hypothesis to this is where the specialist in the region of trading. Service is the key in the on-trade. As an outlet you need flexibility, speed of response, small quantity drops, whilst still delivering on the range and reasonable price. Increasingly these wholesalers are turning to developing own and exclusive labels in their quest away from other drinks providers whose brands become synonymous with homogenous distribution, in parallels with Soviet Russia where everyone would have consume the same dull product. It seems that our requirements as UK consumers to be entertained, educated and associated with alcohol products as consumers has never been greater.
So maybe specialising in a UK region from a distribution point of view is not enough. The product on offer is critical as well as the service. Never have buying skills been as important as they are today and in microscopic detail. There are many aspects to get right. One thing is for sure – the wine suppliers that you deal with need to be creative and knowledgeable about their product more than ever. Just selling A.N.Other Plonk is not going to help your outlet stand out. The mastery is being aligning the differentials with your customers and ensuring the wines you choose. What that wine is maybe is less important – it just has to make an impression, by the way it looks, the taste it has and crucially the story that it tells.
Alistair Morrell
Hospitality & Catering News, Wine & Drinks Editor