Are wine buffs "plonkers"?

Oh how we lol'd at the wine buffs being caught out by Aldi. Except what we actually learned was how to increase the perceived value of wine.

Only a fool asks how much a bottle of wine is worth. Or at least only a fool asks the question without first establishing “where”.

This point was made this month - inadvertently - by discount supermarket Aldi. It turns out that for contrarian, heterodox thinkers - like you and I - Aldi perhaps weren’t making quite the point they thought they were.

At a horse show (“the highlight of the social season”) fine wine merchant “Justin Youraldi” charmed attendees with his wines and his French accent. He flattered their knowledge. People happily confirmed they were well aware of “the Faux Valley”. And waxed lyrical (do people wax any other way?) about each wine. He then asked what they thought the wines were worth.

Spoiler alert… they all thought the wines were “worth” much more than they cost in Aldi.

The Aldi press release channeled the mid-1980’s tabloids with the headline:

PLONKERS! WINE BUFFS FOOLED IN UNDERCOVER STUNT BY SUPERMARKET ALDI

While they thought they were sipping on exotic grapes from the world’s most exclusive vineyards, costing nearly 10 times the price, they were in fact enjoying more modestly priced wines as low as just £4.99.

Attendees at The Royal International Horse Show in West Sussex spoke eloquently about the aromas, balance, acidity and earthiness of the vino – before the big reveal.

Some were even coaxed into putting their ears to glasses of bubbly to see if they could identify the more expensive sounding fizz.

Little did they know, Justin Youraldi, who claimed to be offering samples of his latest collection, was actually undercover, serving up Aldi’s award-winning wines.

You get the gag. Justin Youraldi... Just in your Aldi… Amazing.

Aldi didn’t stop there. They followed it up with a “do bears shit in woods?”-type survey. This discovered - astonishingly - that 40% of “Brits” (read “respondents”) thought wine ‘rules’ were “snobbish”. Well knock me down with a feather. And psephologists’ thighs trembled to learn that two-thirds of Brits thought that wine should be enjoyed as “they see fit” rather than being “told how to drink it”. When asked if they were in favour of “throwing out the rule book”, most agreed. In case you’re wondering, that sound you hear is the rattle of George Gallup and Paul F. Lazarsfeld turning in their graves.

I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that people tend to agree with leading questions like “are you in favour of throwing out the wine rule book?” And in fairness… “are you familiar with the wines of the Faux Valley?” It’s called Acquiescence Bias, and it’s also why Gordon Ramsay always makes Hell’s Kitchen contestants shout back “YES CHEF” when he tells them to do something.

But I’ll be honest, I’m more jaded than shocked to tell you that this survey also uncovered the very literal opposite of what it set out to do. Yes… A “quarter of shoppers said they couldn’t tell the difference between a bottle of wine that cost a fiver and one that cost £50”. But also “Brits” are “happy to fork out £16 for good quality vino.”

So the actual answer to “is it worth spending more money on a bottle of wine?” is not no. But rather “it depends”. The “depend” being itself dependent on whether you earn the mean UK household income of £38,100 after taxes and benefits, or the £117,500 earned by the richest fifth of the population who tend to go to horse shows (source, ONS)¹

This post is part of The Wine Marketing Masterclass. A year-long, MBA-level marketing course in weekly instalments. It’s $100 a year. Compare that to €30,000 and a visa to live in France away from your work and family. And it doesn’t just apply to wine. We have tech, luxury, and whisky industry founders and CEO’s who just like their marketing with a bit of wine on the side. What happens next is I explain how to apply the lessons of Justin Youraldi to your wine business. To find out how…