Quality Schmality

Quality has gone up. More importantly, consumers’ expectations of what constitutes quality, or in layman’s terms, a bloody good glass of wine, has also risen

AS I WRITE this, my feet are submerged in a washing up bowl filled with Ralgex and hot water.  Three days of the London International Wine and Spirit Fair have taken their toll on my bunions and I’m too tight to splash out on a foot spa from Boots.

Overall, despite the foot ache, I thought it went pretty well really. People can – and still do –whine about the new venue, but it’s an infinitely more pleasant environment to work in.  Plus, the side benefits of being all the way out in the docklands are two-fold – first, people tend to spend longer at the fair once they get there, and second, the hangers-on and the freeloaders are dramatically down on previousyears.

So, less of those embarrassing scenes where people entirely unconnected with any aspect of the drinks business find themselves, well, a little tired and emotional.

What was embarrassing, however, was the number of times I had to listen to wine producers telling me their wines were of the "highest quality"; that "quality" is the most important goal; that while everything else like marketing, sales, positioning and branding are all very important, nothing is quite as important as "quality".

And it was embarrassing because increasingly in the wine trade, quality is something of a given.  A decade ago, you couldn’t necessarily say that. If you opened a bottle from one of the big wine brands you’d often find a less than impressive tipple toppling forth into your wine glass.

Sometimes it was okay, often it was bad, sometimes it was pretty atrocious.  Consistency seemed to be the name of the game, but it didn’t actually seem to matter whether it was consistency of poor quality or high quality product.

These days, however, it’s all changed quite dramatically.  Take two of the biggest names in the business, for example: Jacob’s Creek and Hardy’s Stamp series.  Now, I’m not going to pretend for a minute that these two are my regular tipples.  They’re not.  I’m fortunate that being a publisher of a drinks title means that I often get to taste and drink wines that would normally be far out of my price range. I’m spoilt, I’ll admit it.

But if you handed me a glass of either of these two major brands – and there are other big names that I could mention – I wouldn’t be desperately looking around for a plant pot to pour it into.   And I’m not sure I could necessarily have said that 10 years ago. I’m not saying that quality has risen so much that I’d be as happy with a glass of the aforementioned for lunch, rather than, say, a Mouton-Rothschild 1945.

Oooh no. I’m not that stupid.  I’m merely trying to illustrate that on the whole quality has gone up – and perhaps more importantly consumers’ expectations of what consitutes quality, or in layman’s terms, a bloody good glass of wine, has also risen.

And so, when I’m pounding round a trade fair, representing a business magazine, I find it somewhat bizarre that quality is all people want to talk to me about, rather than packaging, promotions or even strategic investments. 

Whatever price point you hit in the UK market, to compete effectively you have to be offering a product that either delivers, or over-delivers in terms of quality.  That’s not to say that some wines don’t manage to slip through – they do. 

But quality isn’t the Unique Selling Point that everyone thinks it is. Indeed, it’s a bit like going into any car salesroom and receiving the pitch, "It goes from A to B it does." I should bloody well hope it does. I’m not buying it to sit it on my drive and look nice. Likewise with the quality of my wine. "This is my new £4.99 Shiraz – it’s a quality product. Quality is everything.

That’s why we think people will buy it." Rubbish. People will buy it because you’ve got a pretty label, or it’s on offer, or they fancy a change.  Or you’ve miraculously managed to persuade Tesco’s to stock one wine only – and it’s yours.  What they’ll expect when they open it, is that it tastes good. 

If it doesn’t, then you’ve blown your chance of a repeat purchase – and that’s when quality really hits home.  But I fear that with Vinexpo looming, I am destined to burst my bunions yet again while listening to the quality "rap".

I’ll actually be pleasantly surprised if someone comes up to me and says, "We’ve got a great all round product – great packaging, great promotional schedule and great pricing – oh, and it goes without saying, it’s a great wine too."

Mind you, I’ll be even more pleasantly surprised if someone at Boots sent me a complimentary foot spa.  Please. Pretty please?  

Charlotte Hey is publisher of the drinks business