Vintelligence starts with the glass, not the vineyard.
Vinarchy, the wine company formed out of the merger of Accolade Wines and Pernod Ricard Winemakers, has launched Vintelligence, a new insight tool that will pitch shoppers by occasion, taste and price rather than by grape variety or region. The company claims the approach could grow the UK wine category by 11 percent, or £1.4 billion in value, by 2029.
The platform, unveiled in September 2026, replaces traditional wine taxonomy with four occasions: celebrating, enjoying the outdoors, catching up, and winding down. Tiers within each occasion run from "Treat Yourself" at the top to "Save" at the bottom, aiming to give shoppers clear signals about when to drink the wine and what it tastes like.
"Vintelligence starts with the glass, not the vineyard," said Emma Mullens, category director for Europe. She said the company realized it had to change to reach consumers, rather than expecting consumers to change, and that wine had "spent too long asking people to understand the category on its terms."
The rationale: most shoppers do not enter a store thinking about region, grape or vintage. They think about what they are doing that evening, and traditional wine cues like "old world" mean nothing to them. "We need to root wine back in the occasions that people are drinking," Mullens said, arguing that clear occasion, taste and price cues can turn hesitation into purchase.
Vinarchy says the insight is backed by NielsenIQ and CGA analysis and was tested with more than 7,000 consumers and over 40 UK retailers and hospitality venues. The company is launching Vintelligence with UK retailers from September 2026, followed by a wider rollout from January 2027.
The launch fits a pattern of category-level investment by the merged business. Days earlier, trade press reported a major rebrand of Hardys, one of Vinarchy's flagship labels, as part of the same drive to re-engage shoppers. The company says it wants occasion-based plans to cover pricing, ranges, merchandising, promotions and new product development, and that the September launch with retailers and venues is the starting point for the January 2027 wider rollout.
The initiative reflects a broader admission inside the industry that wine's traditional selling codes have become a liability. Beer and spirits have long organized themselves around how and when they are drunk, from session IPAs to aperitivo hour, while wine has clung to appellations and varietals that mean little outside the trade. Vinarchy's four-occasion framework is an attempt to close that gap, meeting drinkers where they already are rather than asking them to learn a new language.
For retailers, the pitch is commercial: clearer cues at the shelf edge could lift conversion among the large middle of shoppers who like wine but find choosing it stressful. For producers and suppliers watching the UK market, the more interesting signal may be strategic. A company of Vinarchy's scale putting occasion-led merchandising at the centre of its category plans suggests the industry's biggest players now see shopper experience, not vineyard storytelling, as the lever that moves volume.
Whether occasion-based merchandising can reverse wine's decline in the UK off-trade is the open question. NielsenIQ and CGA figures suggest presentation changes could encourage more shoppers to buy, but the history of category initiatives is mixed: retailers must rearrange shelves and staff must learn new cues, all at a time when shelf space is fiercely contested. Vinarchy is betting that removing the friction of jargon is worth £1.4 billion.