Nationwide Sauvignon Blanc came out on top as the nation's favourite wine and as UK Prosecco sales are soaring, with annual supermarket sales up 34 per cent to £345 million, Aldi’s wine experts have revealed that Glaswegians are on trend as the UK’s top Prosecco aficionados.
The Drinks Retailing Awards Wine Retailer of the Year launched its popular site, aldi.co.uk, early in 2016 and recently collated data from its first 16,000 transactions, revealing its 13 most popular wine styles and the regions from which these styles come.
The statistics revealed that Sauvignon Blanc takes the coveted position of Britain’s most popular wine style, finishing ahead of the UK’s favourite sparkling wine from north-eastern Italy, Prosecco and the UK’s preferred red, Malbec, which took third place.
Both of Scotland's biggest cities showed remarkable differences in their chosen wines with Edinburgh choosing Malbec, a red wine with plump dark fruit flavours and a smoky finish and Glasgow preferring Italy's premium white.
Shoppers in the Midlands proved they have the UK’s most diverse taste palate. Wine drinkers in Leicester like to raise a glass of Rioja, Birmingham wine buffs show a penchant for a chilled Rosé, while folk in Nottingham enjoy the fruity tones of Rosé Champagne and Coventry consumers plump for a ruby red Pinot Noir.
Tony Baines, joint Managing Director of Corporate Buying, comments: “Our expert buying team know exactly what makes the UK tick when it comes to wine and we’re delighted to be able to share our insight. Despite the dominance of Sauvignon Blanc, we are more experimental than ever in our choices, with shoppers regularly trying new grapes and niche styles of wine.
“Aldi’s philosophy is to make quality wine accessible to all, whatever the budget. We can see the influence this has had on our customers who now demonstrate a great knowledge and understanding about wine in their wine choices and feedback. We expect consumers to keep trading up to more premium wines and for new, less well known variations of wine to become more prominent in the next five years as consumers become even more discerning.”
The launch of the wine map follows the launch of limited edition wines into Aldi’s range for its Wine Festival in August. Each wine was cherry-picked by Aldi’s wine buying team to introduce consumers in the UK to some of the most famous winemaking regions across the world, representing the very best wines from five continents and 14 different countries.
The full list of grape varieties and wine regions where Aldi sell the highest proportion of each of its wine styles:
• Chablis – Reading
• Chardonnay – Liverpool
• Champagne - South West London
• Rosé Champagne - Nottingham
• Rosé - Birmingham
• Gavi - Tonbridge
• Malbec - Edinburgh
• Pinot Noir - Coventry
• Prosecco - Glasgow
• Riesling - Chelmsford
• Rioja - Leicester
• Rosé Malbec - Ipswich
• Sauvignon - Newcastle
• Shiraz – Norwich
The nation’s top 10 favourite wine styles:
1. Sauvignon Blanc
2. Prosecco
3. Malbec
4. Shiraz
5. Pinot Noir
6. Chardonnay
7. Rosé
8. Rioja
9. Gavi
10. Champagne
