Wine drinkers are willing to dip into their pockets a little deeper when it comes to their favourite tipple, according to Majestic Wine.
However, the bulk-buy wine seller revealed that the biggest growth area for its business is now sales of craft spirits and beers, up 164% on last year, brewed in small, unique batches.
Chief executive Steve Lewis explained: “Craft beers bridge the gap between wine and beer. People want something specialist and more interesting so we are moving away from sales of mass-produced beers.”
It comes as the average bottle of wine at the firm hit £8.02, compared with £7.71 last year, leading to the average customer spend rising from £127 to £130.
Majestic put this down to the level of knowledge among its staff in giving confidence to customers, as it revealed sales rose by 2.8% to £133.8 million in the six months to the end of September.
Pre-tax profits fell 10.5% to £8.5 million as the company spent cash on upgrading its systems and moving to a new warehouse and head office.
Lewis added online growth was key, especially click and collect, which was up 60% last year to £1.7 million of sales. Web sales account for 11% of business, but Lewis wants this to rise to 15%.
However, the fine wine division, Lay & Wheeler, saw sales collapse as Majestic blamed a poor Bordeaux 2013 harvest, for taking only £548,000 compared with £1.6 million a year ago.
