Background
Summary of Council decision:
Three issues were investigated, all of which were upheld.
Ad description
a. A paid-for Instagram ad for Winedrops, an online wine retailer, seen 30 May 2025. The ad featured a man sat in front of two bottles of red wine. He said, “A declassified wine is when a chateau that’s famous, world famous for selling their wines for £500, £1000, £2000 a bottle, they’ve produced too much juice. But, you can’t just keep bottling your wines, because when supply goes up, demand stays the same, your price has to come down.” He then stated, “So to still sell their juice, but to retain the value of that first wine, they sell the juice in bulk to people like me. What I do, is I design a beautiful label, slap it on the bottle and you get the same wine, the same juice, that is rated 100 points out of 100, these world’s best wines, and you get them for savings of 95% plus. We are not allowed to tell you the chateau that produces wine, but what I can tell you is they are the most prestigious chateau in Saint Emilion, so you can Google that for yourself.” He then picked up the other bottle of red wine and stated, “This one is the most prestigious chateau in Pauillac, so you can Google that for yourself […] But I tried it myself and let me tell you, I wasn’t expecting much, £12 bottle of wine and jus [sic] … it’s good. Cherries, oak, vanilla, you got the tertiary flavours from a just a touch of bottle age. Gorgeous. So guys, that is the wine I’m most wrong about. These wines, these declassified wines, are the real deal. Get on board, get a 10 day free trial, and get yourself some wine 95% off.”
b. An email received 11 June 2025, stated in the subject line “80% off wine is waiting”. Text in the body of the email stated, “80% off wine is waiting for you! You’re so close! You’ve got the app, now get the wine”. Further text stated, “Ever wondered how we get such good deals? No, it’s not a scam. In fact, you’re being scammed right now. The wine industry is full of middlemen taking profit for themselves, and ripping you off in the process. We buy direct from the producers, getting you trade prices on wine. Our members save an average of £500 per year on wine. Why pay more?”. Further text stated, “Watch how Winedrops works” and when clicked on, linked to an online video which included the text, “It’s also what allows us to price wines at up to 80% cheaper than what you can find in the shops”.
c. An email received 12 June 2025 stated in the subject line, “EMERGENCY RESTOCK – Last chance to get WHISPERING ANGEL”. Text in the body of the email displayed in grey font a price of £26.64. Underneath in green font it displayed a price of £5. Underneath it stated, “Save 81%”. Further text stated, “Retail benchmark £26.64, [name of price database] (inc tax)”.
Issue
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The complainant, who understood the top chateaus did have other labels called “second wines”, but which were different from their main products, challenged whether the claim that the wine was “the same wine” as that produced by the top chateaus was misleading and could be substantiated.
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The second complainant challenged whether the claim “80% off wine is waiting for you!” in ad (b) was misleading and could be substantiated; and
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Whether the claim in ad (c) that Whispering Angel was £5 was misleading because when they visited the website, they found it was £13.
Response
1. Banquist Ltd t/a Winedrops said the claim was a tricky one to prove. They said the wine was not a second wine, that was a different concept. They explained that a declassified wine was the same blend, sold in bulk to third-party sellers. However, for reasons they said were obvious, the chateaus did not make that a well-documented practice. They said they could provide an email from the negociant who distributed those declassified wines, as proof. They also clarified that they had removed the ad.
2. Winedrops provided a list of their products and their discount percentage benchmarks. They also said that, beyond the ad, the Winedrops app stated the RRP and the Web Average. In addition, details on the sources of that information were provided when clicked on within the app.
3. Winedrops said they used average prices from a price-comparison, e-commerce platform for their price benchmarking. The £26.64 price shown was an aggregation of all prices for that particular wine, therefore it was the most fair and representative view of that wine’s price.
The ex-tax price for Whispering Angel at the time the ad was seen was £19 and including tax it would be £26.26. The small variation from the quoted price in the ad (38p) was probably due to temporary fluctuations in the price and could be updated if necessary.
They said the complainant would have received a time-limited, special offer for Whispering Angel at £5. They assumed that by the time the complainant clicked on the link, the deal had expired, which was usually after a period of 48 hours. However, that offer was routinely given to customers and they provided a list of orders for that wine at that offer price.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so.
The ad featured the claims, “A declassified wine is when a chateau that’s famous, world famous for selling their wines for £500, £1000, £2000 a bottle, they’ve produced too much juice. But, you can’t just keep bottling your wines, because when supply goes up, demand stays the same, your price has to come down” and “What I do, is I design a beautiful label, slap it on the bottle and you get the same wine, the same juice, that is rated 100 points out of 100, these world’s best wines, and you get them for savings of 95% plus”.
The ASA understood that while it was common for top chateaus to declassify or sell surplus wine, those wines were not bottled or marketed as their Grand Vin and those chateaus reserved their best fruit for their flagship wines and made second or third wines from remaining material.
We considered that consumers would likely understand the claim “the same wine” to mean that the advertised wine was identical or materially equivalent to the flagship wines made by prestigious wine producers, which were known for commanding high prices.
However, the advertiser did not provide adequate evidence showing that the wine being sold was compositionally or qualitatively equivalent to any specific Grand Vin and we therefore concluded that the ad was misleading.
On that point, ad (a) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
2 . Upheld
The ad featured the claim, “80% off wine is waiting for you!”. We considered the savings claim was ambiguous and it was not immediately clear from the email’s subject line whether, for example, it referred to a saving against the prices at which the advertiser usually sold the products. Further text in the email explained that Winedrops bought wines direct from suppliers and so their members benefitted from “trade prices on wine” and “saved an average of £500 per year”. An online video linked to at the bottom of the ad went into further detail of that business model. We noted the video also included a claim that the products were “up to 80% cheaper than what you can find in the shops”, which contributed to the ambiguity of the ad given that the primary claims did not include the “up to” aspect. However, we considered the primary claims were likely to be understood in the context of the main body of the email to mean that Winedrops customers could save 80 per cent against the prices at which the products were generally sold across the market. We also noted that the Winedrops app provided additional information on the bases of their price comparisons. However, that information was not stated in the email, which was not limited by space and in any case did not specifically refer to RRPs or mention web average prices.
Although the advertiser provided data that showed a list of their products and the discount percentages they offered, they did not provide data to show that their prices represented genuine savings, including against the prices at which the products were generally sold across the market. We therefore concluded that the savings claim was misleading.
On that point, ad (b) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
3. Upheld
We considered that consumers would likely understand the claim that Whispering Angel was “£5” to mean that the product was currently available at that price and, although not immediately clear what the discounted price related to, that it represented a genuine saving against the Winesaver “retail benchmark”, as subsequently stated in the ad.
The ad also featured the text, “EMERGENCY RESTOCK – Last chance to get WHISPERING ANGEL”. We considered that consumers were likely to understand that the advertiser was running a time limited promotion on the product, which was ending soon. However, we noted that nowhere in the ad was it made clear to consumers that the £5 promotional offer price was subject to a short promotional window of 48 hours. We considered that was material information that consumers required in order to make an informed decision about the promotion.
Because the ad did not make clear the applicable closing date for the promotion we concluded that it was misleading.
On that point, ad (c) breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 8.17 and 8.17.4.a (Promotional marketing).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Banquist Ltd t/a Winedrops not to claim their wine was the same wine as that produced by the top chateaus unless they held adequate substantiation for the claim, to ensure that the basis of future price comparisons was clear in their advertising and that such comparisons were adequately substantiated. We also told them to make clear applicable significant conditions of future promotions.
