The Games They Play

It is a retailer’s job to sell wine but some of the tricks they get up to are “interesting” to say the least. Buying wine at sensible prices and knowing what to believe can be a veritable mine-field and this weeks article will help guide you through dangerous and potentially expensive territory.

Reviews

Many retailers use third-party reviews to sell wines. Naturally, most of them find the best review possible to support their sales efforts. Some may ‘selectively edit’ tasting notes and only use the best bits so be extremely wary of one-liners. Naturally, if you are going to rely on a tasting note, it helps if you have aligned your palate to the author of the note.

A few retailers use their own tasting notes, if you buy from them and taste the wine and you will soon know if you can trust their notes and judgments. Some are more accurate then others. A small number of retailers may use a panel whose members are either known or unknown to the purchaser. It is important to understand how the panel is aligned to the retailer: are they truly independent, are they employees or something in-between? And in the case of a panel, are they the same tasters all the time or are you getting just one of six possible opinions.

There are also retailers that use the winemakers tasting notes to advertise, not that the winemaker may possibly be biased you understand.

One other beauty used by retailers is to use independent critics overall comments about a winery to promote a selected wine. The overall winery comment may have been made years previously and have no relationship to the quality of the wine now being sold.

Points

Many retailers use points to flog their fermented grape juice. Points in themselves in many cases are meaningless. That is even more especially the case if your palate is not aligned to the person awarding the points. For example, just because a wine has got 95 Parker points is no guarantee that you will like it. You may hate the style of wine, let alone the bottle.

Whilst on the subject of points, one well known retailer uses their own purpose built points system and as a result, the points awarded seem more generous than those awarded by many other reviewers.

Medals

If a wine has been awarded many medals in major shows like Canberra (finished and bottled wines only allowed, most entries have medals from other shows) the chances are the wine will be pretty credible, but a couple of gold and silvers from regional shows does not mean much. The Thomas Hardy 1994 Cabernet Sauvignon has an impressive row of 5 gold medals taking up the full width of the label. Three from Hobart, one from Perth and one from Canberra; looks very impressive but the last time I tried the wine, it was fairly hard and unyielding. Here is my tasting note.

One sniff and this reeks of Coonawarra Cabernet with its touch of VA, integrated multiple berry aromas, herbaceous characters, cedar, coffee and vanillin oak and a multitude of other scents.   Intensely off-sweet on the uptake, there is a subtle under layer of ripe fruit to help balance the noticeable savoury nature and acid. Tannins have softened considerably but the wine is still hard and will benefit from further bottle age; it is only just starting to come together. It was more enjoyable on release and has been a hole for years but looks like it is starting to emerge. Muscular in weight, the fruit is holding up well and there is no hurry to drink it. I doubt it will ever deliver what I had originally expected when I first tasted it, when I rated it as Outstanding, now it’s rated as Highly Recommended and the 94 Petaluma I had recently was more enjoyable and a better wine.

The medals are more impressive then the bottle content, which is a pity. So even lots of stickers proves the old adage, ‘all that glitters is not gold.’

Recommended Retail Price and Normal Selling Price

You can see the same wine advertised by different merchants with widely varying RRP listed as well as their normal (or special) selling price.  An interesting concept, but who’s RRP is the retailer referring to in the advert? Is it the producers, the wholesalers or whatever the market can stand?  In days gone by, bottle shops used to work on about 35% margin and the percentage mark up was reasonably standard wherever you shopped (specials excluded.) In the 90’s that all changed and I don’t think the increasing dominance of the two major grocery retailers gaining an increasing market share around that time was coincidence. Vintage Cellars seemed to lead the high price, high profit push and so their normal selling price for “premium wines” matches the producer’s most optimistic RRP’s, usually substantially higher than a number of independent stores who work on a lesser margin.

If their RRP for wine X is $50 and they have a 20% off sale, their discounted price would be $40 which on the surface, to the casual shopper is good deal. However, if their competitors’ normal selling price is $35, it doesn’t look so great. More and more stores are increasing their profit margins by jacking up their prices, so just because a wine has 20% off, or is reduced by $9 does not mean it is a good deal and cannot be found for less from other suppliers.

Flatulent Rhetoric

Or possibly straight bovine manure. There are some rather overworked and tired phrases which crop up in retailers newsletters all the time. Top of the list is “Limited Stock.” By definition, all vintage wine has limited stock, there is a finite amount of it available, be it Jacobs Creek 2002 Chardonnay or Penfold 1997 Grange. I have specifically used the 97 Grange as an example as it is still available for sale in a number of retailers and this shows that even the most revered wine can be difficult to sell.

Some wines are heavily allocated, difficult to obtain and sell out very quickly. Most smart buyers are aware of these wines and as a result, the “limited stock” hard sell is not required. Some wines are not allocated and are available till the producer has cleared the warehouse of the last vintage. In some cases that takes longer than a full year yet retailers have been known to advertise these wines as “limited stock.”

The next contender is “best ever vintage” or any one of a number of variations on the theme. Time and time again, in retailers news letters this overworked phrase crops up to the point that it is now almost meaningless in most cases.

Whilst on the subject of “best” it would be remiss of me not to mention the newest chestnut “biggest and best newsletter” a claim which is now being made with regular monotony by some retailers, especially those that publish weekly via the internet.

Another beauty are those that make claims like “the best selection of wines at the best prices on the net” where this is clearly not the case and they are just “me to suppliers”.

Customer Inducements

These can take a number of forms but there are two worth mentioning. The first is the prerelease special offer buy. Some retailers, from time to time, will be the first cab off the rank and will offer a “special price” to customers who preorder wine before it is released. Buyers need to be careful with this one. In some cases, it is genuine and the resulting price paid may be attractive but in others, it is a ploy to corner the market and gain a jump on the competition. It is possible that the wine will be less expensive through other retailers when it is generally available.

The second form is Customer Rewards which are offered by some retailers. These can take many forms. Some of these rewards can be good and are genuine. Some others are a ploy. As an example, lets assume you buy from retailer V and ‘clock up’ 1 point for every $ you spend. When you have spent $500 you are entitled to a free $25 bottle of wine. That looks like a 5% saving so it’s a good deal right? It may be provided the $500 that you spent to get the $25 free bottle was spent wisely, but if, by shopping around, you could have bought that same quantity of wine for $380, then the free $25 bottle was expensive. 

Another ploy is to make the customer feel special by “allowing them to purchase limited stock wine” because they have made a purchase from them in the past. This is a great ploy because it is taking the “limited stock” rhetoric to a new level and because the customer is made to feel they are getting preferential treatment, the retailer may wind up selling more wine. In many cases, the “limited stock” wine is reasonably freely available from other suppliers and sometimes even for less.

The Advice

First and foremost, if you do not want to pay more than you have to, know prices. Technology makes it easy. You can have a look at Torbwine Best Buys or there is The Red Bigot Buyers Guide which gives you the latest up to date best buy pricees. If you are really serious, buy a subscription to the Pro version of wine-searcher, (there is a free version too, but it doesn't cover anywhere near as many merchants.)

Spot specials are a good way of saving money but there is another one that has nothing to do with shelf prices. One of the best methods is to build a personal relationship with a small retailer (who appreciates the business) that can get you the majority of what you want to buy and will give you a realistic discount on everything because of your loyalty. That personal relationship is better than any customer reward program.

Know what you want to buy, preferably in advance. That may sound difficult, but it is not as hard as it may seem. Most serious wine buyers know many of the producers they like, the styles they like and the regions they prefer. They also know the reviewers whose palates they trust and know how to interpret their tasting notes. Use that knowledge and ignore the flatulent rhetoric and overworked, overused, hackneyed and emotional, blowsy retailer sell jobs by sticking to the more factual information.

There is so much good wine around that its like taking a bus, if you miss one, there will be another that is just as good arriving in five minutes. It’s the same with “deals”; they are like armpits, every bastard has a couple but some smell better than others!

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2004