When was your last visit at a wine shop?

Finally, the answer is not so obvious to find! More and more consumers leave the wine shop in favor of supermarkets…

But why are we going to buy our wine at the supermarkets?

The supermarkets propos a wine offer even more wide and develop; it’s why we have the reflex to buy our wine in their places.
However, you don’t buy wine in the same way in a supermarket as in a wine cellar.
These are in fact two totally different purchases. It is like comparing the purchase of fruits and vegetables sold at the supermarket with fruits bought on the market from the producer.
The supermarket is looking to offer wines that will please to the majority which is neither original nor atypical. In addition, it must solve a quantity issue. For a store, it is difficult to work with small independent winemakers even if the bad image of producer distributor leads him to work otherwise..

The wine merchant will be free to offer the wines he likes and knows. Each of these wines will correspond to a moment or a dish.

Independent or dependent, that is the question?

The other big difference between a wine shop and a supermarket: it’s the advice!
Most of the time, in the supermarkets, you will not have advices from the sellers. If you go there searching a wine which corresponds perfectly to your dish, you will go for most of the time with a wine choose at random.
This problem can be simply solved thanks to your smartphone. There are more and more application which allow you to find opinions and consumption advice which will help you to choose correctly your wine but they will never replace the wine merchant knowledge.

Nevertheless some distributors, like Système U, Intermarché or Leclerc, are independent distributors so if a manager is a wine lover, he is free to propose wines more unusual and to propose a customized advice.

In the end, why go to a wine merchant to choose his wine?

The wine merchant will help you to choose your wine when you have no idea of what are your needs. If you are looking for an exceptional bottle and if you want a real exchange with a passionate professional it is to in wine shop that you have to go!
The wine merchant is irreplaceable; never even a supermarket with a passionate manager could offer the same service.