The profit margins on wines must be truly excessive going by how every man and his dog are regularly offreing hallf-price deals for a dozen bottles
In addition to the offers I regularly receive from Dan Murphys, First Choice, Liquorland, BWS and Qantas, today I received an offer from Dan Murphys for six bottles of premium McLaren Vale Shiraz for $150.00 for members and $551.00 for non-members.
I don’t recall having ever seen a half-price offer for beer or spirits.
The only wines I buy are a bottle of cleanskin red and a bottle of cleanskin white from Dan Murphys for cooking. I knew wine had to be good for something.
The red went perfectly with the Osso Bucco I cooked yesterday, as part of the recipe.
It’s not at all surprising - established names are fairly consistent with regular and normal specials, but brands that are vying for market share in what is arguably the most crowded and competitive market for beverages often do the loss-leaders. One then needs to consider the market segments who consume on a primary basis beer, wine or spirits and what their spending patterns are - it’s not a simple marketing maze in all aspects, but at the ‘simple end’ I’d suggest if one is marketing VB all one has to do is keep the colour of the can ‘green’ …
It has been widely publicised that there is a glut of overproduced Australian wines. There are few if any bad Aussie wines, so drinkers should expect to benefit from the market conditions, not be ripped off.
Lots of very good product is shipped around in 4-litre casks, e.g., by De Bortoli. I can purchase their Verdelho at Dan Murphys for around $17 a cask (sometimes as low as $12. 50 on special). Put that in screw-top bottles and you are paying less than $3 per bottle for a very acceptable wine–and that’s just one of the varieties available. Don’t be fooled by the wine industry’s fancy smoke and mirrors.
… sadly it isn’t available here - the silver pillows or goon as they are known here are a thing of the distant past. Not sure I’d even want to carry them home from the big smoke down south, having had the car routinely searched on re-entry to the NT … I had a couple of favourites that quaffed quite well, one that came in a ten litre cask
I don’t think that follows. Given the quality of wine in Oz is generally fairly good it is not particularly expensive. Also the industry reports there has been a glut of wine in this country until recent times. The market is diverse and highly competitive which does not allow high profit margins for long. Just because a bargain can be had from time to time does not say it is overpriced.
It is possibly, like specials for other products, that the prducer/manufacturer wears the price reduction rather than the retailer. This often occurs when stock is not moving and it needs to move to allow a new model/year (for wines). The producer agrees to the price reduction so that when new stock can be despatched to stores, there is room on shelves. The alternative may be for the wine producer to lose the retailer as holding stock can be costly for the retailer.
Many of these wines have artificially inflated prices so they look very appealing when offered for so much less. Some are decent wines at the microsecond of their peak but if not moved and consumed ‘now’ they will degrade and become worthless.
Many of the labels/vineyards do not exist excepting through the bulk seller outlets like Cellarmasters, WinesDirect and so on. Conclusion, they are either special labels to avoid diluting the ‘real’ labels’ values or they are specially made to suit the price required.
One company I occasionally buy from predictably offers wines at 1/2 price or better. They are usually good value but anyone who paid the ‘full price’ would probably have been less impressed.
It is a marketing game as often as not, and as was mentioned by many when there is a grape and wine over-supply they prefer to move product than throw it away in whatever manner is required, and wineries do need space in their casks and vats and warehouses for the new vintage so that is not always a furphy.
