This is definitely not an ad. Dare I say it’s the furthest thing from it, and sticking a finger to the idea that all publicity is good publicity, I will crack on. 

Aldi has recently announced that as part of its Christmas specials it will be selling its 2021 Specially Selected French Cairanne at £3.49. Normally retailing at £8.99, this deal represents more than half the price of what bargain shoppers are generally paying for this rather well regarded wine. 

But let’s break this down. The new alcohol rate for such wine in the UK is £2.67. If you add in a very cheap shipping cost of 30p per bottle and then whack on some VAT, you are already looking at a cost price of £3.56 per bottle. So, even before the cost of the bottle, bottling, labour costs and let’s not forget the actual wine itself, Aldi is in the red on this loss leader.

One way to look at this is that it is an absolute steal and on the 11th December when the deal comes in, to make sure to get down to ALDI and load up. (I must say my calendar for the 11th has now been cleared.) But I prefer to look at this another way: for the £3.49 you are paying, none of it is going towards wine. It is Money for Nothin’.

Now we could get into arguments about aggressive supermarket competition, a general undermining of independent retailers (cough), or environmentally degrading extractive capitalism, but I think more than any of that it comes down to playing the system.

So my tip: get down to ALDI, grab a few bottles of this unreasonably priced wine for the tail end of your late lunch, and then buy something interesting that shares a story, ignites a conversation or reveals a passion.