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this
week
In Wine
Today
Christmas
Sentiment
By
Georges Meekers
Christmas is traditionally a critical season for the trade, especially
when, here in Malta, it comes so close after the government’s
budget for 2002.
Are sales indeed in decline as mumbled on the grapevine and will
the drinks industry feel the effect as well? Or, is wine different,
maybe recession-proof?
As a friend-economist explained to me (while sharing a bottle of
red not listed on the Bordeaux-index) wine is not a mature marketplace,
because it doesn’t reach most, or all, of its potential customers.
The market for cars is mature – everyone who wants a car in
Malta and can afford one, has one.
But, in the case of wine, only a small percentage of the population
consumes most of the wine. Besides, in bad economic times, people
may delay purchasing a car, but not a bottle of wine. They might
uncork it at home rather than at the restaurant, but they will still
pull the cork.
The trade, especially the on-trade, will have to work even harder
for its sales. Suffering restaurateurs who fear a gloomy festive
season should consider cutting their wine prices across the board
by, let’s say, one-third – even for reasons other than
survival.
On most lists, the 33-percent reduction on every wine in stock would
entice budget-conscious customers to trade up a notch from their
reliable old standbys, and explore wines that they earmark as for
occasions only.
For example, a bottle of 1999, Gran Cavalier – Syrah would
come down on most restaurant lists from around Lm15 to Lm10, which
is still 30 % more than its original retail release price.
Restaurateurs should realize that lower wine prices often equal
more wine sold, which in turn leads to increased profits for a part
of a restaurant's business that already operates with considerable
profit margins.
In the long run, investing to up-grade the clientele’s wine
choice will prove more lucrative than the tactic of including certain
inferior, insipid wines on the carte-du-jour simply because they
make the final bill look cheaper.
In fact, what is truly driving large numbers of Maltese patrons
to try wine and continue to enjoy it, is simply that the quality
of most of the wines being produced locally, especially the Malta
grown ones, is steadily rising. |
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