These days, it seems, the more obscure and unpronounceable a wine is, the better. True, this is a trend that’s been going on for a while, with both Marks & Spencer and Waitrose in competition with their spookily similar Found and Loved & Found ranges, and they’ve now been joined by Sainsbury’s Discovery and Aldi’s Unearthed.
So who is buying these bottles, and why are the supermarkets doing them? Because the other concurrent trend seems to be to give the customer more of the same, whatever it is – sauvignon blanc, malbec or prosecco. “Indigenous varieties can be an exciting way of innovating in wine, but have always been harder to sell,” Waitrose’s head wine buyer Pierpaolo Petrassi tells me, and explains that the Loved & Found range is a way to let more adventurous customers – the kind who would also buy more experimental food ranges – try new and unusual wines.
