Home with the range
In particular, readers cocking an eye at some of the stories in the business pages of the Irish Examiner recently will have gotten an updated snapshot of some remarkably speedy changes in the what, when, where, and how we are drinking alcohol.
The big picture for the drinks trade as David Clerkin amusingly put it last December resembles a Christmas party: Spirits are going down, the beer is flat but the wine is doping nicely. More recent company results from Guinness, Heineken and Beamish underline that picture.
But alongside the gross figures for categories of drinks there's been enormous change in where we're consuming our drink.
There's been a fall in sales of beer and cider in pubs which is estimated at up to 9%. And at the same time the off licence trade saw growth of 11.5%, with lager scoring growth of 17%.
Benefiting from a combination of that trend towards home entertaining and its own get-up-and-go, sales at Centra (and not just drink) have soared, to 13% to €850m.
And remember this comes on top of last year's 18% increase in retail turnover. It's well ahead of the growth in the supermarket sector.
There's an approximate split of 85/15 between on-trade and off-trade respectively, which means that the surge in off-licence sales cannot entirely account for the move away from pubs. So in between there's a major chunk of our alcohol consumption evaporating. It's estimated that in the six months to the end of last year, the volume of alcohol consumed in Ireland fell by 4%.
So where's it going? Well, the first assumption that commentators make is that consumers are choosing to drink less, opting for a healthier lifestyle as well as responding to pressures such as tighter drink-driving laws and busier work-filled days.
However, reduction in consumption is only one (albeit important) component of the change.
I'm not convinced that all of that drop is accounted for by citizens opting for healthier lifestyles and/or the drink-less and drink-better model.
There is another factor which is unmeasured and to hear the relative silence on the issue from the drinks industry unmentionable: that we're switching to cross-border purchases.
One of the characters in a famous advert for Kerrygold asked "who'll take the horse to France?"
Well, whoever it is, he'll have the horsebox jammed to the gunwales with wine and beer on the way back.
Clearly you can't 'import' drinks into the bar with you. So as consumers switch from the cosy randomness of pubs to home entertaining, they're discovering the compelling logic of the trip on the ferry (or across the border to the North). And it's all driven by our exorbitant tax regime where 21% VAT is plonked on top of the highest per-bottle rates of wine duty in the EU.
It doesn't seem quite fair that our tax regime means that as well as competing with each other, Irish drinks distributors are competing with outlets in other countries.
Okay, enough of the editorialising: You can save the ferry fare with a quality wine at a bargain price at all Centra and SuperValu stores.
The Nugan Estate collection of wines from Riverina in New South Wales is one of the serious ranges exclusive to Musgrave Centra SuperValu.
The Nugans have been serious players in the wine trade much longer than their (so far) limited fame would suggest: They've won their spurs as suppliers of grapes to Southcorp and Penfolds for wines such as Penfolds Koonunga Hills.
Now proudly sailing under their own flag, they bring thee same quality techniques (such as low yields and night-time harvesting of whites for freshness) to bear on their Nugan Estate wines.
And there's even better reason to check out the range now, as Centra and SuperValu stores are marking down by 33% two from the range.
Nugan Estate Shiraz 2002 (above) has generous bucket of berries with subtle oak and a fine firm spicy tartness to accompany the softer fruit. As with the Chardonnay (see page 23) it's marked down by a third to €6.69.
In a way, the price cut marks a rational reordering of the range as in my book, Nugan Estate Third Generation Chardonnay 2002 is good value at €7.99.
