Aldi goes premium with new Icons range

By Jo Gilbert

Published: 10 September, 2019

Aldi is launching a brand new range of online exclusives in order to capture growing interest from customers who are willing to trade up and explore.

The new Icons range will be launching exclusively online from early October.

It will feature 35 new skus all of which show ‘great typicity’ of styles from different regions and fetch generally higher price points of up to £20 RRP.

Aldi has had great success with its premium tier, Exquisite Collection range of wines. These include a number of core wines plus seasonally relevant additions at key times of year.

The new range of exclusives will help further distinguish the discounter’s online offering, where wine plays a significant role along with special buys and other non-grocery items (groceries are only available in-store).

Buying director Joshua Heley explained: “We’re very aware of the trend towards premiumisation. While we need to satisfy our customers which want something at the £4-5 price point, [Icons] is about using our online platform to make sure connoisseurs are also satisfied.”

A number of the new launches were available to taste at Aldi’s autumn/winter tasting yesterday, including a South African Pinotage and an Italian Barbaresco.

Other notable additions to the portfolio were four brand new Rieslings – three of which helped to plug a gap for German Riesling in Aldi’s portfolio.

The wines, from Rheinhessen, Pfalz and Rheingau, all featured as part of a move to stay true to the German supermarket’s roots, as well as to build on the popularity of supermarket’s Clare Valley Riesling.

Finally, there was The Artisan Tasmania Riesling 2018, which will form part of the online exclusives due to go live online from October 1.

Carrying an RRP of £10.99, it is part of a price and perception evolution at Aldi over the past decade, which wine buyer Mike James traces back to the launch of Exquisite in 2012.

“That was the first step in trying to get people to spend up. It has been a phenomenal success for us and something we’re really proud of. We’ve had to build our reputation over a long time, but now, customers willing to trade up and move into less explored categories. We know what customers will like, it’s just up to us to communicate that and help encourage them to explore further,” he said.

James has been instrumental in leading Aldi’s wine category to awards and acclaim over the past nine years.

Most recently, he has been working closely on the new Icons range, while also preparing for a move to Salzburg to work on a major new department to centralise Aldi’s buying operations across wine and other categories.

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