What if the right place to build a wine brand were the supermarket shelf?

Fine wines are uncorked at the restaurant. This maxim has more than a grain of truth, and has been bitterly confirmed by the challenges fine wines have undergone over the last 12 months, since restaurants have been forced to close for such a long time. It is the same scenario in Italy as in the rest of the world. Could it also be slowing down building and confirming wine brands? Our first reaction would be to say yes, at least in theory, because the bottle finds and builds its legend at the table, and not on the shelf of a supermarket. But, is that really the case? According to one of the latest analyses published by Wine Intelligence, the answer is no. And the reasons are logical, even if they need to be further studied and tested.
The British institute study is based on data and consumption habits on the Portuguese market. However, on closer inspection, we can try to adapt them to the Italian context, even though there are differences, starting from average consumption. Portugal is the number one wine consumer in the world, at 49 liters of wine per person, ahead of France and Italy. Plus, opportunities for consumption in Portugal are growing both at home and away from home, though at home, on average, they drink twice as often as they do away from home: 10 against 21.3 times a month. Outside the home, moments in which one drinks a glass or a bottle of wine are quite diverse, ranging from an aperitif at the end of the day to dinner in a formal restaurant, or lunch break to after dinner drinks.
In most of these situations, the choice is left to only one of the diners, who leafs through the wine list and chooses for everyone. Or else, the bartender, who often fills the glasses without even letting the customer see the label, which happens practically every time we sit at a bar table. It doesn’t matter whether you are in Portugal or Italy, as outside the home contact and exposure with the bottle itself is very limited, due to the fact that in many places the wine cellar is not even in sight. The exact opposite happens in the off trade channel; that is, in wine shops, wine bars and supermarkets. In these places there is plenty of time to choose the right bottle, and you can hold it - more or less metaphorically - in your hands. In the big supermarkets the department dedicated to wine is getting bigger and more refined. It has now become the norm to find the most famous and prestigious brands there, and for the emerging ones it is the right place to promote themselves to the general public.