I think the supermarket chains which do this are generally carrying a more ‘commercial’ selection of wine, even if they might have a small pocket of fine wines in some stores. So they are mostly moving large amounts of KJ, Bogle, Beringer etc. using those promotions. It must work for everyone involved - customers, merchants, and producers - since this discounting seems to be very prevalent all across my region.
The local Whole Foods, which has shifted to carrying enthusiast selections across all categories, is NOT doing this style of promotion. Instead they offer a modest 10% discount for a mixed six purchase, along with aisle by aisle discounts on specific bottlings. The latter can occasionally be pretty decent; I picked up a bottle of Failla AVA PN there recently that another shopper stated was a bit less than the discounted club price.
In any case, supermarket selection in my region has diminished in size and interest greatly since COVID.
My supermarket that does this has scarecrow, harlan, bond, petrus, lafite, dom p3, salon, macdonald, screagle and pretty much anything else you can think of.
My sense is that the grocers are playing to two different buyer/persona scenarios.
people coming to buy a single bottle of wine (typically as a gift), and maximizing the margin on those purchases by having a higher single bottle price. They know there are going to be a lot of these people, but extremely low repeat/loyalty. They only buy sporadically when the same situation arises again.
people who are stocking up on favorites for their own consumption. The grocers want to build loyalty here and retain these customers, so they use the 6 pack 12 pack deals as a mechanism to target them knowing that the buyer from #1 has zero interest in spending the money to get so many bottles. They can move a lot of inventory this way (higher avg. basket, which is a big deal for enterprise valuation), and offer competitive pricing to a customer who is likely cross shopping other dedicated wine shops.
This. Grocery stores generally run on very small margins in very high volumes. So, they can handle the margin bite of that kind of deal much more easily than a wine shop.
6 pack discount applies getting Heitz Napa down to $40. I don’t recall any wild enthusiasm about the Napa level, but I figure at that price I’ll put one aside.
These end up in the $19ish zone. Sure, Cloudy Bay isn’t what it used to be as LVMH has pushed production up to 300,000 cases now (from 3000 in 1985) but it was pretty solid the last time I had it a few vintages back.
Did you try one yet? Decanter gave it 99pts! 94WS, 93WA…being touted as the best Reg to date. Huge Heitz fan back in the day, but never liked the reg. I bought one to try tonight…WAY higher than that price though!