BBC wine choice causes sales rush

Majestic has reported the busiest online trading period in its history after a recommendation for a Portuguese wine on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen.

Early last month a little known Portuguese red sold at the wine retailer was recommended by Susie Barrie MW on the popular Saturday morning cookery show and subsequently sold out within hours, causing the merchant’s website to crash.

Barrie said that the 2012 vintage of “Porta 6”, a Tinta Roriz, Castelão and Touriga Nacional blend from the Vidigal winery near Lisbon, would work “just brilliantly” with a barbecued lamb dish and the show’s host, James Martin, agreed calling it one of the best reds he’d tried in the 10 years he’d worked on the programme.

He added that he’d bought three cases online and Majestic stores were “inundated” with orders as a result and traffic to the website was so heavy that it crashed briefly at 11am.

Majestic reported that it took over 1,000 orders for the wine by midday in the “busiest hour in its website’s history” and had completely sold out three hours after the show had finished. Furthermore, it collected orders and reservations for a further 30,000 bottles over the course of the weekend.

This caused Majestic to order all the remaining stock of the 2012 vintage and order a shipment six times larger than the last consignment to meet demand.

Holly Ninnes, Majestic’s buyer for Portugal, said: “I’m delighted that Susie Barrie recommended Porta 6 on Saturday Kitchen and, of course, with the response it received.

“I brought this superb red into our range six months ago – it’s typically Portuguese, but even more approachable and fruit-driven in style. I hope customers enjoy it and it leads them on to discover more great wines from Portugal.”

Porta 6 is now back in stock.