I was reading Wine Spectator this week and came across this article (http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/52366) which discusses a national study that surveyed wine consumer preferences. The study looks across 1,000+ wine consumers and surveys them on their price, taste, varietal preferences, etc. The excepts in Wine Spectator reveal that most consumers spend $10-20 on wine, they prefer a little sweet, and they favor characteristics like "fruity" and "smooth".
This is only the second study of its kind done by Sonoma State and the Wine Business Institute. With this kind of information readily available, I wonder what the information means for the future of wine. Can and do winemakers take the results of surveys like this and try to back into the wine that they create. Seun brought up the idea of market-driven pricing but what about market-driven wine? I know some winemakers are already doing this to a certain extent but will there be an uptick in this kind of winemaking now that more information is available to the public. Additionally, what does this mean for authenticity in the wine industry and diversity in the wine industry? Will we see more wines taking on the same flavor profiles?
Definitely an interesting observation. Although I have to wonder to what extent people actually know their wine preferences. Malcolm Gladwell did an interesting TED talk years ago, where he remarked that most people - if you were to ask them how they prefer their coffee would say "strong, black, bitter" etc. When in reality people tend to prefer coffee with whole milk and sugar. The point being there's a 'say-do' gap (i.e. what people say they like, versus what their behavior shows, is different).
ReplyDeleteSo given this gap, does it make sense for winemakers to deliver wine that people say they like? I'd argue probably not.
Thanks for sharing, Emily. I think this is a really interesting question. And although I do think that many larger wineries target and respond to market changes like this, I hope there are some compelling reasons for smaller wineries not to do this: (1) making changes based on a particular palate can take many years, especially if these changes involve a varietal change or longer periods of barrel aging - so by the time some wines enter the market, these preferences may have changed again (2) regardless of taste preferences, I think many winemakers care deeply about what their particular soil & microclimate has the potential to do best, and they realize that they are limited to some degree in terms of what wines they can produce well and (3) in terms of authenticity, there is often a value in having wines which distinguish a winery as different than the competition. I think this is one of the ways small wineries can distinguish themselves from their larger competitors - by creating something unique in the market, which is a demonstration of their specific terroir & vines. Realistically, however, despite some of these incentives, the market does drive changes in the industry - and this is one of the reasons that many indigenous varietals from wine regions across the world are not as widely distributed (and some are no longer produced at all) as the typical international grape varieties that we know so well.
ReplyDeleteI have seen larger cohorts of wineries provide for tasting guidance on the back of their bottles, also jumping in so far as to recommend meals and courses with their specific flavors. Ideally, when you go to a fancy restaurant and the waiter takes the first 5 minutes describing all types of flavors you will begin experiencing, I would like to see the industry mature to where transparentcy of how to accenuate such flavors with wine pairings on particular palate's can come to fruition. It is currently tough to establish taste preferences because of so much sensory overload, and little training in differentiation ability. To my knowledge- the blind testing in class revealed that pricing is not about taste- pricing is about signal. And wine will continue solely being a signal as opposed to a taste differentiator, unless the industry undergoes radical transparency and training of its consumers.
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