Majestic Wine's 6 bottle policy.

It's been their policy for years Tony and I don't understand it either.

I buy most of my wine from Costco, they often have some good deals on medium priced wines like Campo Viejo Reserva and Grand Reserva, and I also receive some fine wine as presents from grateful friends when I look after their families members in my practice.

I believe that, until recently, they would only sell in 12s. We get 90% of our wine from The Wine Society, which is a wonderful organisation.

Yes. I think HH is right. I used to get my wine from the Majestic store in Croydon before it shut down and the policy used to be 12 bottles so reducing that to six must have been some sort of response to customer feedback on the nature of Tony's.    

I’m not surprised, apparently he was four bottles short of a six pack  

TBH i think Majestic’s business plan is extraordinarily daft.

My wine arrives from local wine merchant via a van driver -

Spend over 90 quid and get free delivery : )

Debs

+1 for the Wine Soc - delivered to your door - or collect from their showroom in Montreuil Sur Mer near Le Touquet and a get significant price cut.

Or go to Stevenage if you drive past or live nearby to their head office and cellars and buy direct.

If any shop told me i had to buy a min of 6 bottles of wine i would walk,no question,and never return.

I am amazed that in these hard times they can get away with that. IMHO that attitude stinks

We bring a lot back from Calais,or otherwise i go to our local Aldi in Selsdon. They offer a good enough selection at great prices.

Mista H

Tell them it's your policy to only accept six £20 pound notes as change as you hand them a tenner.

In fairness to Majestic, one advantage it has over the supermarkets and on-line retailers is that you can taste various wines before buying.  They will even open a bottle for you if the one you fancy isn't already in their wine tasting section.  I've found one or two new wines I like but trying their selections.  

Just got back from our local Aldi,bought 2 bottles of Chianti Riserva @ £8.99 and 2 bottles of Montepulciano @ £3.99 which should with luck get us thru until tues nite.  Both very good wines, and none of this you have to buy 6 bottles crap. They are also still selling a very drinkable red @ £2.99.

Mista H

The history behind this may explain it, and perhaps help you forgive them.

Licences to sell alcohol for consumption off the premises (off-licences) were (still are in some places) only awarded to shops, and even then hard to come by. An enterprising chap in the 1980s realised that you could get round this law by opening a wholesaler, instead of a retailer. The only thing that needed to be different was that you could only sell by the case (12 at the time). 

So he did, and via a number of developments (including ownership by Bejam - remember them?) Majestic was born and thrives to this day.

Many of the branches have subsequently applied for licences (mainly to sell loose spirits and part cases of beer), but not all have got them. In fact the supermarkets pushed for a massive relaxation of the licensing laws in this respect.

Majestic decided the best plan was to stick to the same policy throughout their estate, rather than having to explain the above to someone who had bought one bottle in one store and then had to buy a case in another. They also pressed for 'case' to come to mean six bottles (in practice most wine these days comes in boxes of six).

So, it's the fault of the still-arcane British licensing laws. In some, although not all, of their stores, it would be illegal for them to sell you a single bottle if they wanted to.

From a professional perspective, they have the best buying team operating in the UK currently, and they offer more exciting wines than the supermarkets, while having similar buying power. Your independent wine merchant should be your first call for absolute quality (although at a price), then Majestic, the Wine Society and the like (Costco especially), and then the supermarkets if you value convenience and low prices over all at the risk of indifference, mass-production and silly fake discounts.

Anyway, cheers.

Rod

You have made a very good and interesting post Rod,but what i cannot understand is Majestic are the only people in London that i know of that insist on you buying 6 bottles. Just about every corner shop now has an offy within it and all without exception will sell you a single bottle.

Out of interest folks with Majestics 6 bottles can they be mixed and do they have to all be the same ?

Mista H

Thanks Rob useful information.

As Tony says it's a mixed case. On most wines there is a discount for 2 of the same wine.

We don't buy that much but we get our xmas wines at Majestic, most of the special offer wines are usually open for tasting in the store. I've never had the neck to ask them to open a specific wine.

Only downside for me is the lack or sporadic choices of the better quality German wines, generally only QbA/QbM and Kabinett, I don't really like white wines but do enjoy the occasional sweeter German ones. 

Sorry  Rod.

I missed the 15 ms edit time on this hopeless piece of crap forum !!!!

+1 for the Wine Society, best value and superb selection of wines available IMHO.

Interesting to do the numbers, the £2.99 bottle of wine is £2.49 ex vat, take off the UK duty per bottle which is currently £2 leaving £0.49 to cover the bottle, label, cork, distribution, dealer margin oh, and the actual wine itself. Now spend another £1 or two and you should get a far better quality wine as the duty remains at £2 and the other costs , apart from the dealer margin remain very similar. But I could be wrong!

Chris

Thanks for this insight, Rod. This was new to me. Your assessment of their buying team is also interesting.  When I think about it, over the years I'm struggling to think of wine I've tried at Majestic that I've been really disappointed by, in contrast to some stuff I've tried from supermarkets. Though I know next to nothing about wine so probably buy more blind than most.

MDS 

I avoid buying wine in this country like the plague - it's so expensive for what you get it makes my head hurt.

Every time we go across the channel, we come back with as much as our creaking car suspension will take. A tip though - don't buy it in Calais if you have a choice because everyone there intentionally jacks up the prices to below-UK but above-France prices. If you can get just 20-30 miles inland and stop at a big Carrefour/Leclerc, you'll find the price drops and choice increases. It doesn't take much effort to save more than the ferry and fuel money.

If the selection in most big French hypermarkets is intimidating - and it can be - then just look for medal stickers. There are loads of them, but the CGA is one of most respected: http://www.wine-searcher.com/a...neral+agricole+paris. Anything that has one of their stickers on isn't going to disappoint, and they are often surprisingly cheap as well.

Mark

I don't put too much faith in the 'medal' stickers these days, unless they are Decanter Magazine awards. In general the 'medal' business seems to have deteriorated into just another marketing ploy - and often a medal is for the Winery, not for the particular wine to which it is attached.

Chris

Are you saying UK duty of £2 is the same on all bottles of wine,regardless of quality ? Reason for asking is the £2.99 we often but in Aldi whilst not the greatest plonk on this planet is still drinkable.. I thought it would be a percentage of the end cost price of the product !!

Mista h

I agree Majestic sell some very good quality wine and once you know the rules regarding minimum order size it's really no problem. My nearest branch is a fair drive away so I always reckon on getting 12 or so bottles at a time. Their delivery service is also pretty good but personally I enjoy a good browse through the store.

Chris is absolutely correct.

Yes £2 is currently the duty per bottle, regardless of the value of the wine in it, quite an eye opener.

Aldi have come up with some good wines recently, but they were no cheaper than other major supermarkets for the same type of wine or indeed The Wine Society, who can be trusted completely on quality in my opinion. The WS is a non profit membership only arrangement, basically you buy a share in them for I think £40 (they usually credit some of this cost back to your account), they have wine at all quality levels. You can buy one bottle but you would then pay a delivery charge, 12 bottles (mixed) or an order value of £75 gets you free delivery. if you're interested in wine it's a real no brainer and they're nice people to do business with. The share remains your property and you can bequeath it to your heirs. A nice present for somebody maybe?

Chris

Thanks for your replies folks. Going on the numbers mentioned i would hate to be a wine salesman in the UK trying to flog to the likes of Tesco etc,as these big players must screw you into the ground on price,and then some.

Not in the wine trade by any chance Chris ? As i think if memory serves me Rod is.

mista h