Morrisons revamps French wine range and Malbec

By Arabella Mileham

Published: 13 May, 2015

Morrisons has revamped its range of French wines and boosted its offering of Malbec, focussing on areas that where it says it has historically under-traded.

Mark Jarman, head of wine operations told Harpers, said the move was likely to attract new consumers to the range. "Following the success of the Italian wine range we launched last year, we know is that there's a customer desires for a solid Old World offering," he told Harpers.co.uk. "We had previously under traded in French wine so there was an opportunity to develop that."

"We wanted to give it some focus on both the classic side and the new modern style from the South of the country," wine sourcing manager Katie Mollett added.

The retailer has added new wines from Muscadet and Vouvray - which Mollett said been difficult to source over the last two years following hail damage. It is also rolling out a Burgundy that incorporates 70% Pinot Noir and 30% cru Beaujolais to help flesh out the wine to produce a more juicy fruit flavour.

More wines from the Loire are being planned she said.

The wines that reflect "modern France" include a Clairette from Les Domaine Paul Mas (rsp: £7.99) to provide an alternative to Picpoul, Gerard Bertrand Reserve Special Sauvignon Blanc.

"This is typically French in style, but also executed in a modern way, bright, fruity and fresh in character," Mollett said.

The retailer has also boosted its range of Malbec which it says provides a more structured range at different price point. In addition to the existing entry level bulk-sourced La Bodega de los Altos Andres Malbec, and the Vinalba Reservado de la Familia Malbec, it has added a Alzar Malbec (rsp: 7.49), its own label M Signature Malbec, a Paul Mas Malbec from the South of France (rsp: 7.99) Monts & Vaux Malbec (rsp: 6.99) and Wolf Blass Yellow Label Malbec (rsp:£ 9.99) "There are lots from different parts of the world, it is a great variety people can understand," Mollett said

Wine Sourcing manager Clive Donaldson told Harpers that the own label range has been performing well. "It has grown significantly - we grew our sales 5% and those primarily came though our own label, so it is a growth area for us." Own label currently accounts for around 115 lines out of a total of 550 skus (including fortifieds), he added.

"There is an optimum level, but we're growing from a low level and wanted to establish a sold based and then grow. We have the chalk board entry level and although that will be evolved, we've largely ticked that box. We will add more to the Signature range, but I don't' think the size and shape will change," he said.

In February, the retailer confirmed it would be cutting around 10% of its total range to strip out duplication and poorly performing lines, following in the footsteps of Tesco, which culled around 30% of its range.