Lidl to beef up Prosecco range

Lidl is set to beef up its range of Proseccos and is extending its own label with a new tier of regional wines.

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It is adding a Prosecco Treviso Frizzante to the core range which will hit shelves “imminently”, and retail at £4.99, which joins its existing Prosecco DOC Spumante (RRP: £5.29). Later on this year it will also bring in a Prosecco Conegliano Valdobbiadene Superiore DOCG to give consumers the chance to trade up.

“Prosecco has become a classic and our customers love it,” wine category director Anna Krettman said. “We’re given consumers the option to buy it at a different price point.”

Krettman, who stepped up to the role of wine buyer for Lidl UK in March after former head of BWS Ben Hulme was promoted to the role of international head of wine buying in Germany, said it had seen sales of Prosecco rise.

New World focus

The discounter is also introducing a tier of regional New World wines to its Cimarosa own label brand at a slightly higher price point. There are currently 18 wines in the brand, which was introduced in 2009 and is relaunching in August following a packaging refresh, but it will add “a few” New World wines as a sub-brand to celebrate regional variations over the next 12-18 months.

“New World is an very obvious area for us – demand was strong and it went very well for us as part of the Cellar promotion earlier this year and it is an obvious are for potential,” Krettman said. “We are still finalizing the selection, but we are looking to add more regional variety, such as Stellenbosch or Swartland and these will be at an affordable price point. ”

Iberia 

The discounter is rolling out 23 new Spanish and Portuguese wines from 4 August as part of its latest Wine Cellar promotional range, which will be its largest ever focus on Iberian wines. The wines been selected specifically to offer “refreshing summer drinking”, Krettman said, but is supplemented with a selection of new French wines. The “hotly anticipated” focus on France wines is set to happen in the September Wine Cellar promotion, Krettman confirmed.

“Spanish and Portuguese wines have seen a great uplift in sales and they have done very well with the Cellar range, so we wanted to focus on Iberia as a theme,” Krettman told db. There was, she noted, a huge response to the Hungarian wines released in March, as well as the Canadian ice-wine released in time for Christmas, which she argued was not something the majority of shoppers would otherwise be able to see or try.