// Majestic Wine’s new ‘Wine Fitting’ service focuses on pairing customers to styles with personalised recommendations similar to Netflix & Spotify
// Retailer is targeting the 88% of UK customers who confess to not knowing their way around a wine list
// Free bottles will be given away to every current Majestic Wine customer who completes the “wine fitting”
Majestic Wine has just launched a new “wine fitting” service in all of its stores – giving away almost one million bottles of wine to its customers.
The service launches after the retailer said wine was the most popular alcoholic drink in the UK, with 22.1 million bottles consumed a week.
However, according to a survey conducted by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust last month, only 12 per cent of people “know their way around a wine list” – while 25 per cent of customers said they knew “absolute nothing” about the drink.
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The UK now has 33.9 million wine drinkers according to YouGov, with 81 per cent of alcohol drinking adults saying they had enjoyed wine in the last year.
Majestic Wine is hoping to tailor bottles to focus on each consumer’s style and taste.
The new wine fitting service, which focuses on the stylistic qualities of wine rather than grapes or regions, is based around a blind tasting of eight different bottles.
Customers will then be sent their own personalised wine profile, featuring a breakdown of their likes and dislikes indicated from the service.
Upon completion of the service, customers can receive a free bottle of wine – provided they meet the criteria.
Each wine corresponds to a different style or wine colour.
“This is tasting for the streaming generation, in the fast moving, experience-based new world of retail, customers are desperate to get their head around wine, and do it quickly,” Majestic Wine marketing director Joshua Lincoln said.
“We hope to introduce them to new styles, grapes and regions so they can begin to explore the brilliant bottles that are out there.
“It’s just like how the likes of Spotify or Netflix can help you pick new music or films that match your interests, but you may not have previously heard of or considered.
“We want to take the obscure, and make it box office – there’s no reason Picpoul couldn’t be the new Stranger Things.”
Majestic’ Wine’s new merchandising will be reflected in store and will be navigable by “wine colours” – each one falling into a particular flavour profile, for example: pink for light, fruity reds, or blue for aromatic whites.
Lincoln added: “Wine is now the number one drink in the UK, but still perplexing to many when confronted with rows of bottles.
“We want our customers to love every bottle – whether they’re new to wine or a seasoned pro.
“Even customers who have been shopping with Majestic since the 1980s are trying the new wine fitting – and finding new horizons and rediscovering classics they revisited for years.
“It’s fantastic to see.”
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