Rosé, bubbles, British wine and Stellenbosch booming in UK on-trade

Thursday, 16 February, 2023
Peter McAtamney
Restaurants in the UK are struggling - but what Brits are spending on wine in the on-premise gives no indication of this.

We keep hearing that restaurants in the UK are doing it tough. Cost of living pressure is impacting consumer spending. But you wouldn’t necessarily know that given what Brits are spending on wine in the on-premise.

According to Wine Business Solutions’ Wine On-Premise UK 2023, the average price of a bottle of wine sold in the UK On-Premise is now £44, up 9% and in line with inflation. South African wine held ground, in terms of share of listings, whilst also increasing prices by 9%

The average price of a glass of white wine, however, is up by 18% to £8.11and red up 19% to £8.36 indicating where the UK on-trade are looking to build back their margins on the back of ‘break out’ style demand.

Stellenbosch was South Africa’s best performing regional brand with listings up by 33%.

We saw it in sales figures in off-premise last year and we see it now in UK on-premise listings, Champagne listings are up by 45% on a year ago after having dropped 10% year on year to start of 2022.

After seemingly having come to the end of its run, Rose listings are up 55% year on year with Provence driving growth.

One category outshone them all, however, and that was British Wine. Listings are up by over 100% year on year. This now means that, for the first time, WBS has enough data to make a statistically reliable assessment of British wine as a category.

British sparkling wine is now a bigger category than Cava in the UK On-Premise, something that would have been inconceivable a decade ago and which highlights the difference between having a strategy that is driven by value over one that sells luxury. Aspiration always wins.

An extract of the report can be downloaded by following this link. To secure a copy, follow this link.

Contact peter@winebusinesssolutions.com.au if you have any questions.