Tesco is now looking at ways of boosting the information it gives to shoppers beyond shelf-edge labels, the Tesco Wine Club and the company’s website.
Andrew Carpenter, Tesco’s new category for wine, told Talking Retail, the “big challenges and big opportunities” in-store were to get customers more knowledgeable about wine and so encourage them to trade up.
“There are quite a few ideas in the pipeline, which may involve in-store advisors,” he said.
The advice, however, is likely to be technology-based – possibly through touch-screen kiosks – rather than having staff on hand to help shoppers.
“That just felt too cumbersome and a piece of miss-communication,” he said.
Carpenter, speaking at Tesco’s wine press tasting today (Tuesday), said the UK wine market was going through “interesting times” with rising raw material costs and the threat of increased excise duty rates in tomorrow’s Budget.
Tesco, he said, would continue to stock wines that appealed to a broad range of consumers, including those shoppers at the price-sensitive end of the market and those consumers with money to spend on premium-priced wines.
He said it was also important for Tesco to list wines that offered a point of difference to the other leading multiples.
New and exclusive wines going in-store include the 2007 Hanwood Estate Crisp Chardonnay (£6.99), from Australian producer McWilliams, which uses grapes sourced from the Riverina region of New South Wales and the cooler climate area of the Adelaide Hills.
Around 200 Tesco stores will be stocking the 2002 De Bortoli All Rounder Semillon (£6.99), from Riverina, which, unusually, is a dry botrytis wine, rather than a sweet wine.
The parcel of wine had been forgotten by De Bortoli until it was tasted by Phil Reedman, Tesco’s wine representative in Australia.
