Wine thread

[horrie hastings]

Wesfarmers grapples with First Choice, a Masters-style liquor disaster | Australian Association of Convenience Stores

Simon Evans May 27, 2015 The Age Wesfarmers is grappling with its own version of a “Masters disaster”, albeit on a smaller scale. It is now 10 years since Coles rebadged its big box liquor chain to First Choice from Quaffers, but it’s been a decade of headaches. First Choice continues to be a...

aacs.org.au

 

[Bazal]

Very good summation there. Spot on about Vintage Cellars, the only decent thing that was left in their flagship,

Hmmm First Choice, that stems back even further to the old Quaffers days, Quaffers popped up either late 1994 or early 1995 when the first store took over the Farmer Brothers warehouse in Waterloo . After a few years they opened another Sydney store in Hornsby and then the big one in Melbourne. Differing at head office ( how unusual for this company) ended up running a successful entity into the ground, not sure what the dates were exactly but i think roughly 2003-04 they were throwing around the big box theory for Quaffers stores and even had a site picked on the corner of O'Riordan St and Gardners rd Alexandria for the first store and then everything changed again and Quaffers was just an after thought and closed in 2007.

Coles Myer to expand its Quaffers liquor outlets

Coles Myer is set to accelerate the expansion of its liquor retailing operations with a national roll-out of Quaffers stores planned, while its Vintage Cellars chain is also looking to open new outlets.

www.afr.com

First Choice was set to fail, the Naremburn store was wild, great range and set up like the old Quaffers i worked at only bigger, plenty of premium brands, your store in Canberra sounded like the perfect set up with people knowing what they were doing re premium and local wines and then the usual thing happened and the company shot itself in the foot again and are about to do it again with this latest news.

The First Choices that any where close to where i live are in such poor locations, the Maroubra store is half way between Maroubra Jct shopping centre and Eastgardens on a suburban rd so gets no one stopping there, the Rockdale store even though its on the highway is where there is either company offices and an auto product store and really nowhere near the main shopping strip, again no one stops there.

Would have loved to see how your Canberra store was run at its prime because the day that they killed off Quaffers and sent me into the Liquorland fray really killed off my enthusiasm for wine and learning more about the premium product.

Ah Quaffers. I used to get grog from the Hornsby store when I turned sixt....er, eighteen

I'm not sure that Firs Choice was necessarily set up to fail but I do think that they were late to the market and they didn't know what they wanted it to be. Dan's already had the best sites and the next inside running on the market. They'd sunk a lot into VC, which Woolies never really had a competitor for, and then they wanted to compete with Dan's as well.

Our store, Naremburn and Sylvania kind of became the blueprint after a while when they finally decided to put the effort in. Our store manager for many years was the Canberra Times wine writer, and Naremburn and Sylvania had started with career VC managers, so they had always attracted a lot of the right kind of clients across the spectrum. Even then it took some actual high volume retail experience coming into those stores to really kick them along.

Then they brought across a lot of the VC marketing and wine sales guys in the early 2010s and they had a very store by store focus, cos that's how VC runs. They also saw the opportunity to increase marketing efforts at the higher end - any big box store sells a tonne of beer, basic spirits, RTDs and sub-$15 wines.

That's where they pioneered he 2+1 bundles, which at the start were actually really good. They used to do like 1 Stoneleigh and 2 decent ELB Sav Blancs for $22, or 1 Pepperjack and 2 ELB Shiraz for $30. Those are great deals if you drink that stuff. And smart, because the ELB stuff probably landed at $3 so in the wash out you were making a dollar on that and still selling the name brand around standard sale price.

Then they went even further with that Matt Skinner campaign which, while it had some flaws, was genius IMO. And they were flying after that, but when the marketing team changed they looked at the concept of the bundle as the money spinner, not the actual contents of the deals. From there it all fell apart, that was 2015 and 2016 (which was when my store shut because they killed it off in six months).

Just randomly recalling all this makes me realise how weird my career has been in some ways haha. Retail, to liquor retail, I serious wine sales, and now employment law? Haha

 

[horrie hastings]

Just spoke to one of my old managers today who next week starts on the conversion of stores to the Liquorland brand, reckons there are about 700 lines being cut before they work out what shops will keep a premium range so he reckons Vintage Cellars will have some very good specials with some lines being cleared.

Sounds like history repeating itself .

 

[Bazal]

Mercer Montepulciano 2023. Fruit from the Central Ranges

Dark, rustic nose with choc coated cherries and cinnamon, maybe a little cola and bay leaf. Rich and concentrated, dark fruits but a touch of jube sweetness, dried herb, sarsparilla. Earthy towards the finish then lively acid right at the back.

Very glad I joined the wine club.

 

[Bazal]

2016 Tertini Private Cellar Selection Pinot Meunier

Was worried this might be a little long in the tooth, found it snuck into a box of cellaring pinot noir. Unsurprisingly it does a lot of pinot things, but slightly funky. Nose is deep and dark, earth and smoked tea but also strawberry. It's much more savoury and dry than most Aussie pinot in the mouth, it starts with sweet red berries but goes into gamey meats straight away, graphite and slate, black spices and super dry tannin.

Probably would have been better 18 months ago based on the sharpness of the finish, but it's still bloody good.

 

[horrie hastings]

Angullong Fossil Hill Vermintino 2021.

Nice and dry, quite minerally like a riesling but getting apricot and almond follow through. Have a few bottles in the cupboard and thought better drink it as it might be getting towards the end of its life but its still good

 

[Scott Gourley's Lovechild]

Been a while since I've posted a review, so let's go big.

Penfolds Grange 2000.

From a reportedly shit winegrowing year, in which most critics recommended drinking this bottle up to 10 years ago, and being cellared in what could kindly be called "less than ideal conditions". For all that, the cork had held up remarkably well, so there was a glimmer of hope.

Terracotta edges in colour, and almost exclusively secondary wine tasting notes; in particular leather and herbs. Still had a lick of dark fruit, any red fruit had long disappeared. Still enough tannin in it to finish off dry. Downside was it lacked almost all of that "middle palate" flavour that makes a great Shiraz.

 

[Bazal]

Lino Ramble Pee Wee 2024, Nero d'Avola

Random pick in a Sydney Red Bottle, and it's the sort of random pick I love to find. Vino Novello style, three days on skins, hand plunged, cold ferment. It's a Nero that's made to chill?

I really like it. It's not super complex (how could it be?) but it's raspberry and cola and apples and smart crunchy acidity, with a little kick of spice and a vague waft of dry tannin. Beats the hell out of a rosé if something from the chiller is called for.

 

[Scott Gourley's Lovechild]

Found a few Prometheus wines in a cleanout. Tucking into the Grenache.

 

[Bazal]

Giant Steps Syrah Carignan Grenache.

This might be the most up my street wine I've had for a bit. Fruit off Sexton (which is top tier Shiraz fruit IMO) and Tarraford vineyards and made with minimal intervention. I'd describe it as Cotes du Rhone meets Hermitage.

Raspberry, red cherry, flowering thyme, green peppercorns, fennel seed. Starts juicy, but medium bodied and not jammy or overripe, and ends with pepper and herbs and tannin. At $26 at Costco of all places I'll be heading back tomorrow to get six tbh. Big fan

 

[Drew-Sta]

Found a few Prometheus wines in a cleanout. Tucking into the Grenache.

Oh!! Where did you find them?

 

[Drew-Sta]

The Coles disaster is unlucky in one sense; Endeavour is about to get a huge overhaul and the changes there would have seen opportunity for First Choice etc in market.

 

[Scott Gourley's Lovechild]

Oh!! Where did you find them?

So...

Everytime my family visits Griffith, my Mum takes the opportunity to rearrange my house - including the wine stash. This time she rearranged everything from last time along with the wine (hiding in a sealed up fireplace) and into a wine rack. But the Prometheus wines didn't fit on the rack, so they were on top of the rack instead. So they came back into my world.

I think I only have the Mataro left now, drank the Grenache and a few days later, the Montepulciano.

 

[Drew-Sta]

So...

Everytime my family visits Griffith, my Mum takes the opportunity to rearrange my house - including the wine stash. This time she rearranged everything from last time along with the wine (hiding in a sealed up fireplace) and into a wine rack. But the Prometheus wines didn't fit on the rack, so they were on top of the rack instead. So they came back into my world.

I think I only have the Mataro left now, drank the Grenache and a few days later, the Montepulciano.

Wow, my history on your shelf. Awesome story Still makes me sad to hear how that idea just fizzled due to lack of banner support.

We did a second run in normal bottles. Wines weren't quite as good but were still sound. The Monte and Aglianico remain stand outs.

How did they hold up?

 

[Bazal]

The Coles disaster is unlucky in one sense; Endeavour is about to get a huge overhaul and the changes there would have seen opportunity for First Choice etc in market.

I would say it's a continued example of their complete and total inability to read the room (or the market) tbh.

 

[Mike Oxbigg]

The Coles disaster is unlucky in one sense; Endeavour is about to get a huge overhaul and the changes there would have seen opportunity for First Choice etc in market.

Talking to a bloke yesterday; he works for a retailer in the Newcastle area (I won't name them but not alcohol related). He was saying that they are advertising for a store manager and it seems that every Liquorland store manager in the area has applied for it.

 

[Bazal]

Talking to a bloke yesterday; he works for a retailer in the Newcastle area (I won't name them but not alcohol related). He was saying that they are advertising for a store manager and it seems that every Liquorland store manager in the area has applied for it.

Did he say how many are even on their radar? I bet it won't be many.

The brand's been sinking for a decade, some of the store managers I worked for or sold to must have literally been the only one to apply for the role. The state of staffing is dire last I heard

 

[Mike Oxbigg]

No, I didn't dig too deeply.

 

[Drew-Sta]

I would say it's a continued example of their complete and total inability to read the room (or the market) tbh.

Tbh, the best thing for the industry right now is for both the monolithic arseholes to fall over. The shelf space taken up by Pinnacle in Dans, BWS and Busby Wines in Liquorland has effectively cruelled the industry horrifically.

A massive reset is needed.

 

[horrie hastings]

Talking to a bloke yesterday; he works for a retailer in the Newcastle area (I won't name them but not alcohol related). He was saying that they are advertising for a store manager and it seems that every Liquorland store manager in the area has applied for it.

That sounds about right, they treat their managers like sh*t under pay them and expect them to jump through hoops, no wonder the good ones are leaving in droves and then they will throw in someone inexperienced and expect them to perform from the first second they have the title, the whole company is a train wreck and conditions have got even worse since the Liquor side got thrown in with the supermarket side under the new agreement.