Off-Piste to add new varieties to Most Wanted range

Off-Piste Wines is hoping  to extend its Most Wanted range, the wine brand for millennials it launched last year, with a range of new varietals.

The distributor will be showing new wines on its “hit list” at this year’s London Wine Fair, including a Prosecco, a Primitivo, a Riesling from Clare Valley, a Coonawara Cabernet Sauvignon, a Chenin, Pinotage and a GrunerVeltliner.

“The beauty of the range is that it can be as big as we want it to be,” Paul Letheren told db. “We have the freedom not to be restrained by ‘bog-standard’ varietals – they can be the best wine we can get from the region. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and Malbec are the drivers of the range, but around the outside we can have other lines. The Albariño we introduced is doing very well for example.”

The varietal-led range was developed by Rachel Archer, who had previously developed the ‘I heart wine’ brand for Copestick Murray, and Off-Piste winemaker Clem Yates MW and launched in May 2015 with four skus. Priced in the mid-tier, at around £8, it has won listings with Sainsbury’s, The Co-op, and Booths and clocked up positives sales, Archer said.

“The response to the brand has been incredibly positive – retailers understand it and see why we launched the brand to target millennials,” she told db. “Our original perspective was that people had been talking about [appealing to millennial] for a few years, but no-one was really doing it.”

Archer said the wines being showcased at the London Wine Fair would introduce some more “niche” wines to the range.

“It’s very important to have a good balance in the range and help people out of their comfort zones – a lot of consumers are stuck in a rut, so this gives the reassurance of a brand they trust,” she said.

She said the final offering would depend on new listings but admitted it was harder to get shelf space following the widespread consolidation of retailers’ ranges.