How Consumers Choose Wine: What Wine Drinkers Recognize About Country and Region of Origin

Consumers in both the US and the UK are easily comfortable with some concept of regionality, with New World regions the biggest sufferers, according to new research conducted by Wine Intelligence using the Vinitrac system in both countries.

In a program at the London International Wine Fair (LIWF) in May, Wine Intelligence's CEO Lulie Halstead and her coworker Erica Donoho (based in New York) presented data on whether country and region of origin are significant influences on consumer choice. Their figures came from data collected from 2,000 wine drinkers in the US and 1,000 in the UK.

The results for what matters when choosing a wine is below: USE CHART

But when they looked at regional name recognition, Marlborough in New Zealand and Barossa in Australia were the least recognized major wine regions in the survey.

Just 10 percent of US respondents had heard of the Barossa Valley, and only 12 percent of Marlborough; among UK wine drinkers, the figures were 38 percent and 27 percent respectively.

Bordeaux topped both countries' polls, with 94 percent awareness in the UK and 80 percent in the US, followed by Champagne (93 percent UK; 75 percent US).

The survey also asked all 3,000 respondents to write down the first word that came into their minds when shown the name of a wine region. When Marlborough was shown, the most popular response was "cigarettes"; for Chianti, the 1991 film Silence of the Lambs was one of the most frequently repeated.

"Don't know" was a popular choice for Barossa, but so was Shiraz and Australia less often. "Spain" came up often on the US participant's list of responses.

In fairness, the general responses for both the UK and US respondents for Champagne were "celebration", "expensive", and "my wedding".

The differences for recognition for Napa were understandably skewed: the folks in the UK put down American most often, with Australia, Italy and France showing up as well. For the US respondents, they overwhelmingly listed California, with other descriptors such as "good", "high quality", "grapes" and "USA" appearing as well. USE CHART

A separate Wine Intelligence survey of 1,000 UK wine drinkers slightly contradicted their research, showing that the responders have more affinity with Australia and New Zealand, in terms of people and culture, than any other wine-producing country.

78 percent of those surveyed said they had a 'positive' or 'very positive' affinity with Australia, with 70 percent for New Zealand.

Lulie Halstead tried to make the argument for a region working as a brand, but the data showed that there needs to be quite a lot of educational work to get those "brands" better recognized.