The Search for Wine Drinker DNA

According to the data that WordPress collects about visitors to this website, the three most frequently viewed posts on The Wine Economist are

• The World’s Best Wine Magazine?, an analysis of Decanter magazine, part of the ongoing series on wine critics and publications;
• Costco and Global Wine, which examines Costco’s wine strategy in the context of the three most important global wine markets, the U.S., Great Britain and Germany, and
• Masters of Wine (and Economics), which is about the prestigious Masters of Wine (MW) qualification and the importance of wine economics in its curriculum.

(Other popular posts include my discussions of global climate change, problems in Australia, rising wine prices, and the Hong Kong and Chinese markets.)

What can we learn from the fact that these three posts get the most hits? A closer examination of the WordPress data show that many visitors to this site are looking for information about the “Best” – the best wine, the best wine price, the best wine magazine and so forth. The search for the best and not just the good seems to be very important.

Wine enthusiasts also seem to be searching for credible authorities – people and publications that can guide them and tell them what to buy and drink.

Not unrelated to this is in the interest in Costco (and Trader Joe’s) and other retailers that seem to make the choice concerning good wine or good value wine a little simpler. Costco is now the largest wine retailer in the U.S., as the blog post explains, and it does this in an unexpected way – by giving consumers fewer choices than a typical upscale supermarket (about 120 different wines at typical Costco versus more than 1200 different wines at your supermarket), but also giving them more confidence in the choices that they make.

Project Genome

Visitors to The Wine Economist reflect many qualities that research by Constellations Brands (the largest wine company in the world) has uncovered. The study is called Project Genome, which suggests that it is an attempt to sequence wine drinker DNA. Wines and Vines reports that

The original 2005 study of 3,500 wine drinkers was one of the largest consumer research projects ever conducted by the wine industry. The new study examined the purchases of 10,000 premium-wine consumers–defined as those who purchased wine priced at $5 and higher–over an 18-month period. While the first Project Genome study asked online survey participants to recall their wine purchases during the last 30 days, the Home & Habits study tracked the actual purchases of Nielsen Co.’s Homescan® consumer purchase panel, which employs in-home bar code scanners and surveys to map consumer buying behavior across a demographically balance

Nielsen measured consumer attitudes and purchase behavior within multiple purchase channels, including warehouse clubs, supermarkets, mass merchandisers, drug stores, liquor stores and wine shops. The scan data were supplemented with online interviews to classify consumers by Project Genome consumer segments identified in Constellation’s original study: Enthusiasts, Image Seekers, Savvy Shoppers, Traditionalists, Satisfied Sippers and Overwhelmed.

The largest group of wine consumers are the Overwhelmed (23% of consumers). They are described as

• Overwhelmed by sheer volume of choices on store shelves
• Like to drink wine, but don’t know what kind to buy and may select by label
• Looking for wine information in retail settings that’s easy to understand
• Very open to advice, but frustrated when there is no one in the wine section to help
• If information is confusing, they won’t buy anything at all.

The second largest group are Image Seekers (20% of consumers). They

• View wine as a status symbol
• Are just discovering wine and have a basic knowledge of it
• Like to be the first to try a new wine, and are open to innovative packaging
• Prefer Merlot as their No. 1 most-purchased variety; despite “Sideways,” Pinot Noir is not high on their list
• Use the Internet as key information source, including checking restaurant wine lists before they dine out so they can research scores
• Millennials and males often fall into this category.

Traditionalists (16% of consumers)

• Enjoy wines from established wineries
• Think wine makes an occasion more formal, and prefer entertaining friends and family at home to going out
• Like to be offered a wide variety of well known national brands
• Won’t often try new wine brands
• Shop at retail locations that make it easy to find favorite brands.

The Savy Shoppers (16% of consumers)

• Enjoy shopping for wine and discovering new varietal s on their own
• Have a few favorite wines to supplement new discoveries
• Shop in a variety of stores each week to find best deals, and like specials and discounts
• Are heavy coupon users, and know what’s on sale before they walk into a store
• Typically buy a glass of the house wine when dining out, due to the value.

Satisfied Sippers make up 14% of consumers. They

• Don’t know much about wine, just know what they like to drink
• Typically buy the same brand–usually domestic–and consider wine an everyday beverage
• Don’t enjoy the wine-buying experience, so buy 1.5L bottles to have more wine on hand
• Second-largest category of warehouse shoppers, buying 16% of their wine in club stores
• Don’t worry about wine and food pairing
• Don’t dine out often, but likely to order the house wine when they do.

And, finally, Wine Enthusiasts are the smallest group, accounting for just 12% of all wine buyers. They

• Entertain at home with friends, and consider themselves knowledgeable about wine
• Live in cosmopolitan centers, affluent suburban spreads or comfortable country settings
• Like to browse the wine section, publications, and are influenced by wine ratings and reviews
• 47% buy wine in 1.5L size as “everyday wine” to supplement their “weekend wine”
• 98% buy wine over $6 per bottle, which accounts for 56% of what they buy on a volume basis.

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Not surprisingly, Wine Enthusiasts and Image Seekers account for nearly half of all wine sales while Overwhelmed consumers purchase disproportionately little wine. While wine magazines find a ready market at the top of the pyramid, retailers and wine companies probably view the Overwhlemed as the potential “fortune at the bottom of the pyramid.” There is a lot of money that can be made if wine can be simplified (or these consumers educated) so that they move up the wine buying ladder.

Visitors to The Wine Economists seem to fall into three of Constellation’s categories: Enthusiasts, Image Seekers and the Overwhelmed based upon the limited and superficial “most popular post” data reported here. It will be interesting to track further Project Genome results as they are released and to see how Constellation Brands uses this information in its wine market strategies.