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year Crossroads held its Fair from15 to 29 September.
Similar Fairs were held by Auchan, Monoprix and Leclerc.
Wine shops also joined in from 25 September to 6 October.
Champion was the last on to start on October 3; it will
last till October 14.
Wine-lovers across France rush to pick up bargains
at these supermarket wine fairs.'Twenty five percent
of annual wine sales in France take place nowadays during
these wine fairs,' says Guillaume Halley, director of
the Champion supermarket in Bordeaux.
"We generally sell about five million bottles
during the two-week wine fair," Halley said. "This
year we noticed that volume is going down and value
is going up with the 2005 vintage on the shelves, because
everyone knows it is such a great year."
Wine fairs have been a feature of the French supermarket
calendar since the 1980s, but they only really took
off in the late 1990s.
Now they are so well known for bargains that one of
the problems, says Halley, was limiting wholesale wine
merchants, from both France and neighbouring countries,
particularly Britain, from buying up the best wines
at bargain basement prices, only to resell them for
double the price.
"The profit on a bottle of top Bordeaux during
the wine fair is between zero and five per cent,"
he said. "A wine merchant will come in and buy,
for example, a bottle of Lafite Rothschild 2004 for
129 euros, and then he can turn around and sell it for
between 250 and 300 euros."
In the United States, the same bottle can cost up to
$ 600 or more (400 or more euros), according to the
wine-searcher.com
price comparison search engine.
Supermarkets use the most prestigious wines sold during
these fairs as "loss leaders," knowing that
clients who come in to buy one or two bottles of top
names such as Lafite or Cheval Blanc, will end up buying
other more day-to-day wines, and possibly other items.
"The average price of a bottle of wine sold during
the wine fair in Carrefour for example is 10 euros.
Here at Champion it is 4.50 euros," Halley said.
In an attempt to stop wholesale merchants ruining the
chances for individual consumers -- who are after all
more important as clients -- supermarkets have taken
to limiting purchases of bottles of the very best wines
to one or two bottles.
Other notably good deals this year -- as catalogued
by British-born PR consultant Jim Brough, have been
bottles of Chateau Lafite's second wine, Carruades de
Lafite 2005, selling at 43s euro a bottle, compared
to about 97 euros in Britain, including VAT and duty.
Another of Latour second wine, Les Forts de Latour
2004, went for 719 euros a case compared to a British
price of about 1,173 euros .At Brough's local Auchan
supermarket, purchases were limited to one case of each.
For chateaux owners however, who have to deal with
complaints from traditional customers like retail and
restaurants, this time of year is problematic.
Source : http://afp.google.com
With Supermarkets ready to take off in India,
this would be a good way to take the lead and start
with such annual wine fairs where the customers can
stock up and the stores and importers can increase their
sales significantly. Of course, someone has to co-ordinate
so the sales are held at the same period- Dussehra/Durga
Puja and Pre Diwali, for instance could be the perfect
window-editor
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