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Slideshow
Top 10 bestsellers at Selfridges
With around 3,000 lines and an average spend of £30-40 per customer, Selfridges wine and spirits department is going from strength to strength. Head buyer Dawn Davies, spoke to the drinks business about the latest trends.
Selfridges, Oxford St. (credit: Andrew Meredith)
Looking at Selfridge’s top 10 most valuable wines and spirits, sold in 2014, you have to ask ‘is the big spender back in town?
“I think they’ve changed. You’re getting more people after exclusive, one-off big ticket items, and what’s nice is volumes are steady, but value’s going up. There has definitely been a shift on three years ago when there was the influx of Chinese customers and you had the ‘Lafite effect’. It’s now a lot more evenly spread.
In her seven years at Selfridges, Davies has seen a big shift towards spirits which now accounts for a third of sales – the rest being split equally between still wine and Champagne. Among spirits she said: “Whisky’s the big trend. While Cognac has flattened out a bit, whisky just won’t stop. A lot of people after the big ticket items, and they went mad for Japanese whisky over Christmas.”
Meanwhile interest in fine wine has broadened out beyond Bordeaux. “We’re seeing more interest in the New World, in the top-end of South Africa and even Argentina where I brought in a few top wines and that’s working really well.” Davies felt her customers were “becoming a bit more adventurous. On the shop floor over Christmas, she said: “people were definitely willing to spend up, and would say ‘I’m looking for a wine at £15 – 20, or £40 – 70’.”
Looking forward, Davies predicted: “the big trend with spirits will be vermouth – a bandwagon we jumped on last year. I think Bourbon will become stronger and other non-Scotch whiskies like Japanese. On wine there’s a big interest in South Africa, and Spain’s doing really well.”
Click through to see Selfridge’s most valuable wines & spirts sold during 2014 (prices inc. VAT)