Rosé and boxed wine lead lockdown sales

Rosé and boxed wine have emerged as the stars of lockdown, according to a ‘plate of the nation’ report by UK supermarket Sainsbury’s.

Sainsbury’s has sold £150,000 worth of organic pink Born from Penedès since it launched in February

Within the ‘drinks dispatch’ section of the report, Sainsbury’s revealed that 6.8m customers had bought bag-in-box wine at the store during lockdown. The affordable wine format is proving particularly popular with younger consumers, with 28% of those aged 25-34 buying BiB.

“A new generation of customers are discovering bag-in-box wines for the first time, finding them the perfect remedy to overspending, for money and consumption, because BiB helps them to control both,” said Sainsbury’s wine expert, Helena Nicklin.

“There is nothing not to love about these wines – the quality has come on leaps and bounds and many of them offer much more sustainable packaging; something wine drinkers are increasingly conscious of. We expect to see many new BiB brands appear in the next year or so to meet rising customer demand,” Nicklin added.

Year on year sales of boxed wine are currently up by 41% at Sainsbury’s. The format is proving a lockdown favourite due to the wine staying fresher for longer than a bottle, its affordability and flexibility in terms of when you drink the wine.

“Lockdown gave bag-in-box wine an opportunity to shine. Shoppers could get the same great taste in a larger container that kept their wine fresh for six weeks from opening, which meant fewer trips to the shops,” said Sainsbury’s wine buyer, Hugh Browne.

“This made the move to a bag-in-box wine an easy decision for many customers in recent months – and this is a trend we see continuing to grow post lockdown as we bring out our new premium Taste the Difference bag-in-box wines in January,” he added.

At the opposite end of the wine spectrum, ‘premium’ wines also enjoyed a 24% year on year sales uplift during the lockdown, with rosé emerging as the star style.

Year on year premium rosé sales are up by an impressive 60% at Sainsbury’s, with the premium category now accounting for 20% of the store’s rosé sales.

Proving the pulling power of celebrity wines, sales of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s Provence rosé brand Miraval have shot up by 90% at Sainsbury’s, with premium French rosé sales in general up 43% and Italian rosé sales up 70%.

Born Rosé is also proving popular. Having only launched in February, Sainsbury’s has already sold £150,000 worth of organic pink from Penedès.

Sainsbury’s sold over a million bottles of rosé between 2018-2019. Once pink Prosecco starts hitting the shelves later this year, the supermarket predicts it will account for 20% of its total Prosecco sales.