Market research is a wonderful thing and AC Nielsen is the undisputed king of that particular jungle, but there is a dark side to the figures it so efficiently produces on the UK wine market.
I am not for the moment suggesting there is anything occult about its data-gathering and spewing forth of market shares, weekly spends, sales by price point and ‘impulse’ purchases (made anywhere other than in a multiple grocer). Nielsen depends on the thoroughly mundane business of registering and analysing wine purchases made via EPoS, electronic point of sale. The wealth of market information generated by...