What can we learn from four decades of Majestic Wine prices?
A few recent tweets revealed the price of certain wines at Majestic Wine back in 1981 and 1982.
With a bit of Googling, I was able to find Majestic wine prices from 1990 (this print advert), 2001 (a Wayback Machine archive of the Majestic website at the time - incidentally, this is when I first started working for the company), and 2010 (this downloadable pdf of a Majestic catalogue).
By including current live prices from majestic.co.uk, we can track the generic prices of wines that have been sold at Majestic Wine over almost 40 years. But what does that tell us?
Majestic Wine prices over the years
After calculating equivalent bottle prices and finding comparable wines throughout the decades, prices (in GBP per 75 cl bottle) are as follows:
| 1981 | 1990 | 2001 | 2010 | 2020 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valpolicella | 1.38 | n/a | n/a | 6.99 | 8.99 |
| French house red | 1.39 | n/a | n/a | n/a | 6.99 |
| Anjou Rosé | 1.58 | n/a | n/a | 5.99 | 6.74 |
| Côtes du Rhône | 1.66 | n/a | 3.29 | 4.99 | 6.99 |
| Beaujolais | 1.87 | 3.49 | 4.99 | 5.99 | 7.99 |
| Muscadet | 1.91 | n/a | 3.29 | 5.49 | 7.49 |
On the face of it, these data don’t seem tell us anything hugely insightful. The main headlines seem to be:
Muscadet was more valuable than Valpolicella in 1981; today the reverse is true
Anjou Rosé has fallen out of fashion since 2010 compared to the five other wine styles (see graph below
Not exactly a revelation to those who work in the trade. However, it gets a bit more interesting if you adjust the 1981 price for inflation (using the Bank of England’s inflation calculator) and compare it to today’s prices:
| 1981 price | 1981 price adjusted for inflation (a) | 2020 price (b) | difference between (a) and (b) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valpolicella | 1.38 | 5.32 | 8.99 | 41% |
| French house red | 1.39 | 5.36 | 6.99 | 23% |
| Anjou Rosé | 1.58 | 6.10 | 6.74 | 9.5% |
| Côtes du Rhône | 1.66 | 6.41 | 6.99 | 8.3% |
| Beaujolais | 1.87 | 7.22 | 7.99 | 9.6% |
| Muscadet | 1.91 | 7.37 | 7.49 | 1.6% |
Firstly, this shows us that all wine has increased by more than the price of inflation, but it also re-emphasises the difference in the relative value of specific wines that have moved over time, primarily due to changes in fashion.
The increase of wine costs above inflation can be at least partially explained by changes in duty. I’m not going to examine this in detail, since it has been done exhaustively elsewhere (for example, this study, or download this pdf of alcohol duty rates since 2000, courtesy of the WSTA).
Another interesting factor is currency devaluation, as pointed out by Mike Veseth of The Wine Economist:
“Why is Valpolicella (the only non-French wine on your list) so much more expensive now? The answer is at least in part because it was artificially cheap back in 1981. 1981 is pre-euro, so the wine was priced in Italian lira. Italy was experiencing high inflation rates back then and the government compensated with periodic devaluations of the lira to restore competitiveness. A devaluation that pushed down the lira would also reduce the GBP price of Italian wine.
One consequence of the Euro is that Italy and other countries can no longer devalue their way out of problems and this has hit Italy (and even its wine industry) very hard.”
Mike also mentions the importance of how and where wine was sold, and the influence of supermarkets over the years. In the UK, supermarkets started selling wine in the 1960s, so were a regular fixture on shelves by the 1980s, although the days of deep discounting didn’t begin until the 1990s.
Can Wine PRICES teach us a HISTORY lesson?
Despite seeing the evidence of how fashions affect wine prices over time, it’s difficult to know what to do with this information.
Looking to the not-so distant past shows us a seemingly inconceivable world - bottles of Valpolicella at £1.38! - and it’s similarly impossible to forecast how the world will look in another 40 years. (In fact, right now it’s difficult to predict how the world will look in 40 days.)
I wonder what the wine trade of the future will think of present-day prices?