CONSUMERS' WALLETS PUT TO THE TEST :
Despite the purchasing power crisis in France, professionals remain optimistic about the coming "wine sales". Bordeaux will be launching a publicity campaign :
In the French wine world, September is traditionally the month both of the harvest and of wine fairs (where consumers can buy bottles at 'sale' prices).
An unprecedented slump in wine sales in large stores (super & hypermarkets) registered since the beginning of this year means that these Autumn cut price sales fairs will prove to be a real economic test. Will the purchase power crisis prevail?
" We can forget the past and with it the +15% growth per year in sales. That's all finished!" says Guillaume Halley, proprietor of the Champion Bordeaux-Caudéran store which will launch it's wine fair on the 16th September with 400 labels on offer. " I predict the same sales figures as 2007 as I believe consumers will continue to treat themselves. More than half the bottles sold throughout the year are sold during the wine fair season, at an average price of 20 euros per bottle. I think we have nothing to worry about, " continues Halley, who also owns the Château La Dauphine (Fronsac, Gironde). This is the first year that his own wines will be on offer in three major store wine fairs : Leclerc, Auchan and Carrefour.
"Because of the thousands of catalogues distributed in France for the wine fair season, it's a marvelous chance to be in the spotlight."
Inescapable : Jean de Laitre, sales manager for Château Monestier La Tour (30 hectares in the Bergerac region) and Château Vrai Canon Bouché (12 hectares in Canon Fronsac), both of which are very visible in the Autumn catalogues, agrees that these large store wine fairs are essential to boost sales.
"It is very difficult to establish a product image without going through the large store channels," de Laitre explains. " These hypermarket chains are so powerful in France that they simply cannot be ignored. Wine is good for morale so I hope, in the right setting, the bottles will sell themselves".
Indeed, even if specialist boutiques and Internet websites are now proposing their own wine fairs, the large store chains have been responsible for the major market share of domestic wine sales for over a quarter of a century. To such an extent that this time of the commercial year, spread over several weeks, accounts for a quarter of the annual wine sales in this distribution sector. And the figures show that this phenomenon is here to stay. The 2007 season even beat all the sales records : 50 million litres of AOC wine were sold in the hypermarkets (up by 7% as opposed to 2006) for a total of 326 million euros spent (+11%), Bordeaux obtaining the lion's share with 4 bottles of out of 10 and 1 euro out of 2. It has to be said that 2005 was on the shelves last year...Of course the famous Bordeaux vineyard, the largest AOC region in the world (120,000 hectares) is the historic driving force, thanks to it's famous names, available at attractive prices during the 'sales' for those who wish to start or add to their cellar.
Dominique Rey, wine sales manager at the Leclerc store in Saint-Médard, in the Bordeaux suburbs, is confident that this will be another good season : "We still have many 2005 vintage bottles on offer amongst the 800 labels on our shelves, so I am optimistic. Our clientèle is perhaps less sensitive to the economic difficulties."
The Bordeaux Inter-professional Council (CIVB), in an attempt to ensure the success of this key period for the wine industry's economy, is taking the initiative of launching a big publicity campaign.
Radio : the new publicity meduim : The campaign will be launched on the 22nd Septemer. A vast visual campaign (the notion of "château" being put forward) will involve 4800 large 8 - 12 m2 posters all over France, smaller posters on shopping trolleys in the 660 stores. In addition, radio will be used to spread the word via two ads lasting 30 seconds will be broadcast by 11 national radio stations between September 20th and 30th.
These publicity campaigns are financed by compulsory subscriptions paid by wine producers and merchants alike to the Council.
WINE FAIR DATES FOR MAJOR STORES :
CASINO : 9th - 24th Sept.
CARREFOUR, INTERMARCHE & MONOPRIX : 10th - 20 Sept.
LECLERC : starts 24th Sept..
AUCHAN : starts 17th Sept..
SYSTEME U : starts 23rd Sept.
CHAMPION : starts 1st Oct.
César Compadre
doc@sudouest.com
S.O. 02/09/08
Translated by Maxine Colas.