Aldi wine bar opens in Antwerp with glasses from €1
Al Divino, a pop-up in the Zuid district, prices every glass at the shop price of the bottle divided by six. It closes on 1 November; the bottles stay on the shelves.
Aldi has opened a temporary wine bar in Antwerp, and the Aldi wine bar prices its glasses by a single rule: the shop price of the bottle divided by six. Al Divino, at Volkstraat 23 in the Zuid district, runs until 1 November, with most glasses between €1 and €3.
According to Aldi Belgium's press release of 23 October, it is the first time the discounter has taken its year-end wines off the shelf and into a bar. The pop-up opened on Friday 23 October and serves from 17:00 to 22:00 on 23 and 24 October and from 29 to 31 October, with a longer session from 14:00 to 22:00 on Sunday 1 November. The bar's own booking site also lists Wednesday 28 October.
The menu runs to ten wines, all from the range Aldi sells in its Belgian stores. The cheapest pour is not the advertised €1 but a rosé, Fleur des Sables, at €0.92. La Capelude Grande Réserve, a white from the south of France, costs €1. At the top sit a Châteauneuf-du-Pape from Cellier des Princes at €3 and a Champagne Premier Cru at €3.33, which puts that bottle at just under €20 in store.
The glass is the advert; the bottle on the shelf is the product.
Non-drinkers get an alcohol-free sparkling wine at €0.67 and house iced teas at €0.80. The only food is a €5 tapas board of cheese, charcuterie and hummus from Aldi's own shelves.
How the Aldi wine bar sets its prices
Lieve Conard, head sommelier at Aldi Belgium, explained the arithmetic to RetailDetail: at home a bottle pours about six glasses, so the bar simply divides the shop price by six. "Good wine doesn't have to be expensive," she said in the press release. The real target is the shelf, not the bar: visitors are meant to choose the bottles for their festive table, and the 33 year-end wines have been in stores since 21 October.
Time slots can be booked on the Al Divino website. Walk-ins are accepted while there is room. Belgian supermarket promotions drew scrutiny earlier this week for other reasons, when a report found that Belgian supermarkets still push meat and dairy despite their climate pledges.
An advertising budget, not a restaurant model
Gondola Foodservice, the Belgian trade title, reads the Aldi wine bar as brand advertising rather than a move into hospitality. Restaurants usually multiply the purchase price of a bottle by three to five to cover rent, staff and margin; Al Divino applies no markup at all, and Aldi has not disclosed what the operation costs.
The bar shuts on 1 November. The bottles stay on Aldi's shelves through the holidays, at six times the price of a glass, minus the brick wall and the mood lighting.
