Why buy at Majestic Wine?
We at mywinespace are major advocates for getting people out of supermarkets where wine is a price-focussed commodity and into specialised wine outlets where selling wine is a passion. The buying experience within a supermarket is usually about what's on the 3-for-2 aisle this week, and often these wines are barely worth their discounted price. You can forget about striking up a conversation with an employee about whether this Rioja would be a good match with your pork chops later that evening; it ain't gonna happen.
Compare this with a visit to a specialised wine retailer. The service is personalised; it's all about helping you find the right bottle of wine and sending you home with a little more knowledge than when you came in. They focus on doing this well as that's how they get repeat business.
An excellent first step into the world of the specialist wine retailer is to visit Majestic Wine. Many of the mywinespace team are customers and fans and here’s why;
- Lots of outlets. Over 200 stores nationwide with space for your car. The outlets are well placed so chances are there’s one close by. You can browse online and pick in advance through their 'click and collect' service. Alternatively, if you don’t have a store locally, you can still buy online and enjoy free UK delivery on orders of 6 bottles or more.
- Range. It’s massive and contains lots of award winning wines, 90% of which are sub £10 so a great place to go if you’re looking for a wine that over-delivers on price. They have wines from almost every region with particularly good selections from France, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina and South Africa. New Zealand in particular has some fantastic options at excellent prices when purchased as part of their bundles discount.
- Trained, friendly staff. A core principle of Majestic is that all their staff have wine qualifications to ensure that they know their stuff. Staff are passionate about wine and are eager-beavers when it comes to talking about wine, explaining styles and helping you pick a wee gem of a bottle. They do this in a down-to-earth style so you have no reason to feel intimidated.
- In store tastings and events. Next time you’re passing a store, wander in. There are usually a few bottles open for you to taste free of charge at their tasting counter. They also run free wine courses and focussed tasting events, check out their website for more details. Fair play to them!
- Award winning. Accolades include Decanter Best National Wine Merchant, International Wine Challenge High Street Chain of the Year and Educator of the Year for staff training and customer tastings.
The downsides? There are not many but two niggles spring to mind;
- Minimum purchase of 6 bottles. You don’t have the option to by single bottles. A little frustrating if you’re just looking to pick up something for dinner that evening but with plenty of very good wines at sub £7, a bulk buy won’t break the bank.
- Discounts can be confusing. Our last trip to Majestic (July 2015) found the new discounting structure difficult to follow. Gone were the bulk-buy by region offers (e.g. 33% of NZ wines) and in their place were bulk-buy by colour code offers. While this allowed customers to mix wines across regions and still avail of discounts, there were too many colour schemes across too many regions for this to be a simple buying decision. Majestic say they are working to improve this customer experience.
So there you have it. An award winning retailer with a warehouse full of award-winning well priced wines sold by friendly knowledgeable staff who love what they do. You can’t ask for much more.
Check them out at: http://www.majestic.co.uk
