This July, we celebrated 31 Days of German Riesling for a seventh season. The campaign saw a greater focus on supporting UK independent merchants and retailers along with restaurants and saw over 150 restaurants, wine bars, and independent merchants across 34 towns and cities in the UK taking part.
The 31 Days winners will receive cash prizes towards new listings of German wines. Drumroll please…
On-trade category
Winner – Pantry & Co
Runner up – Tate Catering
Highly Commended – EatDrinkSleep
Off-trade category
Winner – Luvians Bottle Shop
Runner up – Le Vignoble
Highly Commended – Duncan Murray Wines
Archie McDiarmid, Manager of Luvians Bottle Shop in St. Andrews which stocked 35 different German Rieslings to celebrate the campaign commented, “There is perhaps no month that Luvians staff members look forward to more than July’s 31 Days of German Riesling. We found that increasing our selection in the £8-12 range has made it a lot easier to sell Riesling to those who were working with a smaller budget, or had not tried it before.”
Joan Torrents, owner of delicatessen and speciality wine and beer shop Pantry & Co offered 31 different German Rieslings by the glass for the promotion, and shared, “[31 Days of German Riesling] has allowed us to have a targeted approach and a purpose. It has driven more footfall, more awareness and significantly increased the sales of wines by the glass. Without a doubt, the most successful and effective campaign that we have run since we opened three years ago.”
Participants reported listing on average 11 different German producers, and increasing German Riesling listings by an average of six wines, for the duration of the campaign. Many also commented on the effects of the heatwave in July helping to bump up sales of German Riesling, with an average 500% volume increase and over 300% value increase in July 2018 versus June 2018.
A recent Wine Intelligence report revealed that Riesling remains in sixth position in terms of white varietal consumption in the UK[1], an opportunity for the 31 Days campaign to continue to build awareness around Germany’s most important grape variety.
[1] Wine Intelligence UK Portraits 2018, August 2018
