Christmas cheer for wine sales

There will be an increase in the amount of wine sold in the UK this Christmas, according to a survey conducted by DoILikeIt?

The wine research company’s recent consumer report revealed that 39% of wine drinkers said they would buy more wine this year compared to last, while 59% would buy the same amount.

The results come on the back of Virgin Wines’ announcement that it achieved a record-breaking sales day last week. Tipped to be the busiest day of the year for online sales, on 7 December the UK mail-order merchant notched up £377,000 in revenue, its highest daily sales performance ever.

The DoILikeIt? survey also tallies with the fall in Champagne sales statistics as it illustrated that people are scaling back on their Champagne purchases despite the plethora of offers on the high street.

Less than 2% of consumers said they were planning on taking advantage of the deals while 30% said they wanted to avoid conspicuous spending.

Among those surveyed, the most popular reason not to buy Champagne this Christmas was “there simply weren’t so many occasions where Champagne seemed appropriate,” while 87.5% of Champagne drinkers said they already buy sparkling wine as an economical alternative to Champagne.

Despite this, 51% said that there’s still “something special” about buying Champagne.

DoILikeIt? is a specialist wine research company in the UK that was launched this year by Robert Jospeh, Hazel Murphy and Judy Kendrick.

Jane Parkinson, 14.12.2009