Fine wine sales in the UK are on the up

Wine drinkers are getting a taste for fine wine, according to recent sales figures. Majestic has seen sales of bottles at £20 and above soar by 33 per cent over the past year and Commercial Director Jeremy Palmer told ThirtyFifty that, ‘It has been growing solidly for two years.’ He said that customers are buying bottles for drinking now, citing good clarets as particularly popular. Majestic currently has fine-wine display areas in 20 stores and will be rolling this out to a significant number of other stores as a result of the growing demand for premium-priced wine. Waitrose, too, has seen customers starting to see the benefit of paying more for their wine. The company now has 120 fine wines in more than 80 branches and sales of bottles costing more than £10 have gone up 53 per cent in the past year. Other supermarkets are also tapping into the obvious potential. Sainsbury’s said it’s currently revamping its whole fine-wine offer, while Tesco is continuing to extend its fine-wine range as well as put it into around 150 stores.