Yes, the World Cup kicks off today and wine retailers across the land are surely trying to find a way to drive sales through any kind of footballing link they can think of. Right? Actually no.
Take a cursory look across the online landscape and you’ll see no mention of the World Cup at Majestic, Oddbins, Laithwaites or Nicolas. Even Naked Wines has nothing to say on the matter, and they are owned by a South African boy – come on Rowan, where’s the love?
The problem is, packaged sporting wine deals rarely sell. The clever direct marketers sit around and plug the numbers in to their very clever counting machines and inevitably conclude that it’s easier to sell coals to Newcastle. When it comes to football, it’s all about the cheap beer I’m afraid.
We gave huge kudos to Berry Bros for their simply brilliant Fantasy Wine World Cup so let’s not blow smoke up their proverbials yet again..
…instead it’s left to he august Wine Society to invite us to ‘Raise a glass to this year’s football World Cup hosts’ through a characteristically straight ‘Discover South Africa case‘.
Such a paltry offering is dwarfed by Tesco who have dedicated a whole section on their website to South African World Cup Fever. There’s a competition, a full selection of South African wines, a map of key vineyards and some info on history and climate. Reithian values from Tesco then.
And finally amongst the big boys is Marks and Spencer who, like Tesco, have gone down the highly unimaginative “25% off all South African Wines” route. Yawn.
Can I fess up? I’ve only written this post so that I can shoehorn the John Barnes Rap into this blog. Please forgive me and enjoy the greatest footballing contribution to music since Waddle and Hoddle.
Well shoehorned..I think I am starting to get the fever..