Waitros’s winning ways

When it comes to name dropping, Waitrose is the winewriter’s supermarket of choice

AS ANYONE who has recently visited a Waitrose can tell you, they know how to do wine. The upscale supermarket arm of the John Lewis Partnership has always been a leading player in wine retailing, despite its relative lack of size at 140 stores and a geographic bias towards southern England.

Despite this, Waitrose has not historically occupied centre stage in the minds of leading winewriters (and their readership) as the place to find interesting and good value wines. That role has traditionally fallen to Oddbins, and to a lesser extent Sainsbury’s and Majestic.

However, a sea change is clearly afoot if May’s In The Press data is anything to go by. Once again Waitrose has topped the league with a record high 17% of mentions, reinforcing a series of strong performances which began in July last year.

Waitrose now leads all retailers in the long-run averages, accounting for nearly one in eight wines mentioned over the past year.  What lies behind this shift in allegiance among winewriters is a matter for debate.

Waitrose supporters argue that their policy of aligning themselves with leading wine suppliers, and treating them with a sensitivity and fairness which is now singularly absent in relationships between other large supermarkets and their suppliers, is yielding dividends in the form of winning wine products.

A more sceptical view is that the fall from grace being suffered by Oddbins, and a receding tide of press comment on wines in general, has left Waitrose as the last remaining friend of the wine buff.

In a related development, the Oddbins denouement took another twist in May with Jancis Robinson weighing in with a trenchant bout of criticism for the brand and its new owners, Castel.