Abstract
Wine education poses a paradox to the industry: consumers both say they desire to know more about wine, yet they also report being overwhelmed and confused. In addition, the traditional analytic approach to wine education has involved teaching consumers a “grid” with rules for analysis that rely heavily on language which younger consumers in particular report disliking. A holistic approach to learning about wine was shown to be effective for more expert consumers, but those researchers did not consider how the learning approach affected their overall liking of the wine. Our first study considers teaching young consumers (Gen Z and millennials) through a holistic technique (involving drawing the wine’s taste) to a more verbal analytic approach (writing decompositional tasting notes) with consumers having some prior wine education and those without any. We find that the holistic approach led to greater liking for the wine, particularly with consumers having no prior wine education. We also found that consumers with prior wine education desired a more eudaimonic approach to their learning than new wine consumers. Both levels of prior experience desired a hedonic learning experience. Although we and other research groups have found younger consumers receptive to wine education, some have suggested that the wine industry is losing touch with younger consumers. We partnered with a digitized wine tasting platform, QUINI, to determine generational differences in their consumers’ engagement. In preparation for Study 2 we mined 3 years of data, and then conducted an online survey of three generations of their wine consumers in terms of their interest and education in wine. We discuss our results and implications for how managers might seek to engage new wine consumers, particularly in the virtual world.
I think wine is one of the most definitively ludic objects around, which is why it’s a drag that so many so-called “educational” systems for learning about it often suck the joy right out of it as an outcome of bad pedagogy that prioritizes rote memorization over inquiry and play. —Melanie McBride
The wine industry has an education problem. The New York Times critic Eric Asimov says, Many wine authorities believe that a wine should be described as specifically as possible, breaking it down into a group of flavor and aroma components . . . I disagree with this approach, when most people drink a wine, they experience it seamlessly, in its complete form, not as a series of discrete individual flavors, some of which, in the tasting notes, can be so esoteric as to be incomprehensible.
This traditional way of teaching consumers about wine—developing a verbal lexicon—is turning off consumers, particularly younger consumers. Master Sommelier and Master of Wine Doug Frost says, “young people are more likely to mock wine snobs” but is hopeful the industry can find ways to give them an experience like he had where he got “stars in his eyes and lost his mind” about wine (McClain, 2020).
Baby boomers had been the major consumer of wines. With the smaller Gen X group not taking to wines overall, the larger millennial generation became the future hope of the wine industry. Millennials were initially quick to adopt wine as their favorite beverage and this generation was part of the reason for the increased popularity of wine in the early 2000s (Gillespie, 2005). But other alcoholic beverages like craft beer, cider, and hard seltzer took some of their interest away and the wine industry seems to have lost traction with many of its young consumers (Drinks Business, 2014; Halstead, 2018). Now the industry is trying to appeal to the younger generations (Gen Z and millennials) while attempting to keep the older consumers with buying power satisfied.
Wine marketing and education have been the primary means of gaining and attracting new consumers. But doing things the “old way” does not seem to be working for younger consumers. As one millennial wrote, One can’t help but wonder if wine companies aren’t underestimating their target market. Sure, we can enjoy some X-box and thrive on social media, but the same study found that millennials are also more likely to belong to a wine club, consume more imports than other generations, dine out more often, and view wine as a much more affordable luxury than the other age demographics. (Pike, 2011)
A 2019 survey by Drizly found that one of the commonalities across generations of wine drinkers is the belief in the importance of wine education to inform their choices (“Consumer Study by Drizly Paints Emerging Picture of How Gen Z Shops for Alcohol In-Store and Online,” 2019). Wine education can take many forms, from informing consumers about conceptual information such as grapes, regions, styles to more perceptual tasting experiences to identify wine flavor characteristics (LaTour et al., 2011). Bridging the conceptual and perceptual knowledge is key for consumers to understanding their taste experience (LaTour & LaTour, 2010).
In our research, we suggest that the industry move from a verbal analytic approach to a more holistic approach to their education and communication. In Study 1, we test how the analytic versus holistic approach results in differences in discrimination and liking of wine for young wine consumers. In particular, we investigate how wine education and motivations for drinking wine influence both about how they feel about the wine and the educational approach taken. We then describe a new app, QUINI, and its digital approach to wine education. We mined 3 years of their data to uncover generational involvement in digital wine tasting. We also conducted a survey of their consumers to determine any differences in interest in wine and wine education. We discuss the managerial implications of our findings.
Literature Review
Developing a Wine Consumer
Wine is an ambiguous product and difficult for new consumers to easily understand. Roughly one third of consumers report being confused or “overwhelmed,” according to Constellation’s Genome research (Veseth, 2008). Learning is thought to enhance appreciation (Clarkson et al., 2013); therefore, the wine industry has sought ways to engage consumers through education and communications.
To create new wine consumers, there are factors that the industry can control (such as the type of learning approach they employ) and individual consumer factors to consider (such as interest and motivation in learning). A brief background on these factors is discussed next, and hypotheses are developed to be tested in our studies.
Industry Factors
The traditional approach to wine education operates under the belief that consumer appreciation can be guided by unbiased, impartial, and experienced judging. As such, rule-based grids and verbal lexicons have been developed as tools to teach mastery. Maciel and Wallendorf (2017) term this analytic approach “taste engineering,” in which emotional detachment and the use of precise language to objectively describe taste experiences are key to learning how to discriminate and assess—that is, to accrue good taste and become an expert.
However, as noted in our introduction, younger consumers to wine are turned off by expert lingo and want a learning experience that is meaningful to them. In prior research, LaTour and Deighton (2019) describe a holistic approach to learning about wine that is non-verbal and employs narrative processes. They report that novice consumers enjoyed the holistic drawing approach but only more advanced wine tasters were able to utilize the technique to improve their blind tasting. Those researchers did not consider the possibility that younger consumers of wine might use the holistic approach to create a more favorable attitude about the wine.
The Master Sommeliers in LaTour and Deighton’s (2019) first study discussed the importance of emotional distancing and objectivity in their analysis of wines as a potential limitation toward their enjoyment: The lack of emotion involved in using the grid structure in particular was noted by Ronald as one of the problems with its ability to capture the experience: It’s kinda like—well, it’s not like playing music, because if you play music you need emotion in it, right? But when you’re breaking down music, there’s not much emotion involved. Let’s say you’re trying to transcribe music. Really, I mean, where’s the emotion there if you’re trying to transcribe it with sheet music?
While new consumers might find the analytic approach to be effective to teach them to identify and differentiate aspects of their taste experience for a blind tasting, the holistic approach allows them to create a more emotional connection to wine. Appreciation is about learning how to relate to the object holistically and create meaning beyond the testing environment. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:
In addition to the learning method employed, the industry can technologically adapt their teaching methods. As many younger wine consumers (Gen Z and millennials) use mobile technology in their purchasing decisions, wine educators that employ apps will be more likely to engage with this audience. It is not enough, however, for wine educational providers to just digitize traditional learning materials. Millennials and younger wine consumers view the 100-point wine scale and the wine lexicon as the provenance of the older consumer (Teague, 2015). As younger consumers are moving away from expert opinions, it is important that the wine education app allows the consumer to learn from their tasting experience and retain that information for later decision making. The digitized offerings should allow them to enrich their learning and enjoyment of wine. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:
Consumer Motivation to Learn About Wine
Consumers are motivated to learn about hedonic products for different reasons: some believe that learning will lead to more enjoyment, others are more motivated by other reasons, that is, appearing more knowledgeable or expert (Clarkson et al., 2013). Psychological researchers have differentiated these different states as “hedonia” and “eudaimonia” (Huta & Waterman, 2014; Waterman, 1993). Hedonia, or hedonic, is a concept originating with the ancient Greek Aristippis, which involves feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, and enjoyment. In contrast, Eudaimonia, or eudaimonic, a concept which goes back to Aristotle, involves living a commendable or virtuous life focusing on growth, meaning, authenticity, and excellence (Huta & Waterman, 2014).
Consumers who have enjoyed wines for years but have not pursued any formal wine education may be driven by “hedonic” motives as their personal enjoyment of the wine is foremost. Consumers who have actively sought out wine education may be driven by “eudaimonic” goals where they seek continual knowledge as a means to improve their understanding of wine. The type of wine education and materials sought by these different types of consumers may also differ: the hedonic consumer will want materials that increase their fun and enjoyment of the wine experience more immediately, whereas the eudaimonic consumer will want materials that deepen their knowledge in the long run, developing their skills of mastery. As Maciel and Wallendorf (2017) observed for their eudaimonic consumers: “Instead of simply enjoying beer by drinking it, aficionados formulate the goal of mastering it” (p. 733). Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:
Study 1: Learning to Like Versus Discriminate
The purpose of this study was to test how a new holistic tasting approach would compare to a more traditional one for young Gen Z and millennial consumers. While LaTour and Deighton (2019) found that novice wine drinkers responded more favorably to analytic instruction in terms of later memory discrimination, they did not assess overall liking of the wine. In addition, we were interested in whether these young wine consumers might differ in terms of their motivation in learning about wine, and whether that would affect how they felt about their wine education experience.
Method
Our 69 wine participants (average age 24.5 years, range between 21 and 35 years) attended a learning session presented as a wine tasting and education event, where they were randomly assigned to either a holistic or an analytic learning condition. The holistic group learned to more fully experience tasting wine by drawing images. The analytic group, in contrast, learned to analyze the wine’s taste through deconstructing taste elements into individual elements and writing a detailed description of the wine. These methods are similar to those in LaTour and Deighton (2019). Participants also completed a questionnaire concerning how their hedonic/eudaimonic feelings during the tasting experience, as well as how they felt overall about the learning experience. They took a short quiz on general wine knowledge and also listed the number of grape varietals they had tasted. Participants indicated any past wine education experience, as well as their wine consumption, interest, and experience.
Measures
Attitude
Participants rated the wine on eight measures: six on ten-point scales with higher values indicating more favorable responses: overall taste quality; like to have a whole glass; compare to your favorite; how likely to buy; how to likely recommend; overall feelings. One measure was to identify smiley face association with their experience (1–7 from sad to happy, which was converted to a 10-point scale) and another was a feeling thermometer where they indicated from 0 to 100 their feelings (and this was converted to a 10-point scale). The items loaded on one factor with a Cronbach’s alpha of .96 and were summed to form an Attitude Index.
Memory discrimination
As in LaTour and Deighton (2019), participants were given an array of five wines and were asked to identify the one they tasted earlier. For each wine they also indicated how likely the sample represented the earlier tasted wine (from 1 = definitely not the wine tasted earlier, 7 = definitely the wine tasted earlier). A discrimination score was computed for each participant by subtracting the average rating of the distractor wines from their likelihood rating of the actual wine. This score ranged from 6 (perfect accuracy and discrimination) to −6 (wrong identification and no discrimination).
Hedonic/Eudaimonic scales
The Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire—Standard Form (PEAQ-S) was used for the hedonic/eudaimonic scales in terms of how they felt about their wine activity (Waterman et al., 2008). Hedonic enjoyment was measured with these six items, where participants indicated how well these statements related to them (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree): (1) When I engaged in this activity I feel more satisfied than I do when engaged in most other activities; (2) This activity gave me my strongest sense of enjoyment; (3)When I engaged in this activity I felt good; (4) This activity gave me my greatest pleasure; (5) When I engaged in this activity I felt a warm glow; and (6) When I engaged in this activity I felt happier than I do when engaged in most other activities. The scales loaded on one factor with a Cronbach’s alpha = .89 and were summed to form a Hedonic Index.
The eudaimonic items measure feelings of personal expressiveness and are represented by these six items: (1) This activity gave me my greatest feeling of really being alive; (2) When I engage in this activity I feel more intensely involved than I do when engaged in most other activities; (3) This activity gave me my strongest feeling that this is who I really am; (4) When I engaged in this activity I feel that this is what I was meant to do; (5) I feel more complete or fulfilled when engaging in this activity than I do when engaged in most other activities; and (6) I feel a special fit or meshing when engaging in this activity. These items loaded on one factor with Cronbach’s alpha = .94 and were summed to form an Eudaimonic Index.
Wine knowledge
Participants completed a short five-question quiz to assess general knowledge about wine. Questions included (with correct answers in bold) the following: (1) Which of the following is a red wine? Riesling, Chardonnay,
Wine behavior
We asked them: “How often do you buy wine” (1 = not very often, 7 = very often); “How much experience do you have with wine? “(1 = not very much, 7 = very much); “How much interest do you have with wine” (1 = not very much, 7 = very much). These three measures loaded on one factor with Cronbach’s alpha =.82 and we summed them to form a Wine Behavior Index.
Results
Wine education
Participants all attended a university where wine classes were offered. In total, 30 (15 in the holistic condition; 15 in the analytic condition) had self-reported previous wine education training. We expected that those with prior education would perform better on the wine knowledge test and have a broader tasting background than those without any education. We also believed that those with wine education would report buying more often, greater interest and experience (our Wine Behavior Index).
Those with prior education did better on the wine test, MEducation = 2.2 versus MNoEducation = 1.2, t(67) = 3.54 p = .0007; reported drinking more styles/varieties of wine, MEducation = 4.87 versus MNoEducation = 3.15, t(67) = 2.49, p = .01; and overall more engaged wine behavior, MEducation = 12.77 versus MNoEducation = 10.64, t(67) = 1.99, p = .05.
Attitude
H1 predicts that the holistic learning approach would lead to greater liking of the wine, particularly for consumers without any prior wine education experience. We used general linear model (GLM) to test this, with type of approach (holistic, analytic) and wine education experience (yes, no) and their interaction as the independent variables and the Attitude Index as the dependent variable. The overall model was significant at F(3, 65) = 10.68, p < .0001, with type of approach significant at F(1, 65) = 6.13, p = .02, where the holistic overall leads to greater liking, MHolistic = 54.4, MAnalytic = 47.2; and the interaction was also significant, whereby there was a negative impact of the analytic method for those with no prior wine education experience and more positive impact of the analytic method for those with prior education. Means for the holistic were MEducation = 46.9, MNoEducation = 59.9, and the analytic, MEducation = 56.5, MNoEducation = 39.3.
Memory discrimination
Previous research had found that the analytic approach to be more helpful for novice consumers than the holistic approach, and the holistic approach becomes more effective for advanced consumers. We used GLM with type of approach (holistic, analytic) and prior wine education (yes, no) and their interaction as independent variables, and discrimination as the dependent variable. The overall model was not significant at F(3, 65) = 2.2, p = .11. The only significant factor was type of approach, with the analytic leading to more discrimination than holistic, F(1, 65) = 5.7, p = .011, MAnalytic = 1.75, MHolistic = 0.167. The other factors had Fs < 1. Apparently, our wine-educated consumers had not been trained enough to benefit from the holistic approach to help their blind tasting.
Motivation to learn
Our H3 predicts that those with more wine education will rate higher on eudaimonic motivation than those who have not chosen to study wine. Hedonics will be more important for new wine consumers. In addition, the type of wine education approach may interact with consumer motivation, where the holistic approach is more appealing to those without education pursuing hedonics, and the analytic approach is more appealing to the eudaimonia side of those pursuing wine education.
We ran GLM with type of approach (holistic, analytic) and prior wine education (yes, no) and their interaction as independent variables, and the Hedonic and Eudaimonic Indices as dependent variables. For Hedonic, the overall model was significant at F(3, 65) = 6.53, p = .0006, and education was a significant factor, with those with previous education higher than those without, MEducation = 31.76 versus MNoEducation = 26.64, but that was qualified by a significant interaction, F(1, 65) = 5.20, p = .02, where those with no education rated their hedonic experience of wine much lower with the analytic learning tool, MNoEducation = 23.94 versus MEducation = 32.6, compared with the holistic learning condition where there was no significant difference between the level of education, MNoEducation = 28.96 versus MEducation = 30.93. The type of educational approach was not significant, F = 1.71.
For Eudaimonic, the overall model was significant at F(3, 65) = 8.53, p < .0001. Only level of education was a significant factor, F(1, 65) = 22.76, p < .0001, where those with previous wine education indicated greater eudaimonic motivation, MEducation = 25.7 versus MNoEducation = 17.12. Neither education approach nor the interaction were significant, Fs = 1.39, 1.43, respectively.
Discussion
We found that younger wine consumers did pursue wine education (43% of our sample), and that education increased their overall wine knowledge, their breadth of wine tasting, as well as their overall wine behavior. We further found that those with prior education showed higher hedonic and eudaimonic motivation for learning about wine than non-wine-educated consumers.
In past research, those with extensive training benefited more from the holistic than the analytic training method in blind tasting (LaTour & Deighton, 2019). This was not the case in our work, where overall the analytic method worked better for all levels of consumers. We believe this is because while our sample had some education, they were not trained enough to benefit from an entirely new way of thinking about wine. In fact, when we consider the young educated consumers’ overall attitude toward the wine in our study, they liked the wine more when they used the more traditional verbal method of analysis they were familiar with.
In open-ended comments about the holistic drawing method, we found that participants engaged in a deeper, emotional way with the wine. Participants said, “it made me really think about taste and relate to a feeling”; “helped me understand wine as an experience”; “helped express my creativity about wine”; “the way it gave me a new way to look at wine, relating taste to images, emotions and feelings is wonderful; it made me think about wine more of an emotional and visual experience”; and “never have I been so thoughtful about taste.”
In comparison, those with no education found the traditional method helpful: “it taught me what to look for in wine, as well as the steps”; “understand different components, distinguish”; “gave new adjectives to use to describe the wine.” But for those with prior education, it wasn’t any different than the type of approach they received in a typical wine class, one saying “methodically this was a refresher of my wines class.” And a novice with no education said that while “the color wheel and sommelier checklist were helpful for knowing how to approach it; Sadly, I didn’t feel very confident in my ability to assess the wine.”
The holistic approach offers a new way to engage with wine. The visual aspect in particular relates to how younger consumers relate on picture-based social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat.
While this study and other research find that younger consumers do enjoy engaging with wine education, we recognize that our sample was a small and controlled group. A recent large-scale Wine Intelligence Report (Halstead, 2018) concluded that consumers’ overall knowledge levels about the details of wine and where it comes from will decline in the coming years. The report says that they have seen more consumers saying that they care about wine, that the category is important to them, that they take their time when buying wine, but at the same time consumers’ overall objective knowledge about the category (understanding of grape varieties, countries of origin, regions, etc.) has been in decline. Those authors further conclude, consumers are not very good at remembering stuff anymore. They live in a world where they can look up information on their smart phone. It is not that consumers do not care about wine regions. They do, they just can’t remember them as much because we’re now in a world where you don’t need to remember stuff. (Halstead, 2018)
We suggest that looking at the consumers’ motivational states may explain the differing industry opinion regarding young consumer and wine education. Some report that millennials and Gen Z have a “great thirst for wine knowledge” (Teague, 2015) which refers those with a more eudaimonic motivation. Those say that these new wine consumers show less interest in learning facts about grape varietals (Todorov, 2019) may be referring to hedonically motivated consumers. As consumers who have already begun their wine education journey with traditional analytic methods will seek similar tools, it may seem that such an analytic approach may still be necessary and relevant. However, newer wine consumers may be more open to other methods for engaging with wine (such as the holistic drawing approach) which will lead to more engagement in the industry in the long run.
To test H2, that the wine industry can attract new, younger consumers through using digital platforms, we partnered with a wine sensory data platform to investigate generational differences in wine education usage.
Study 2: Generational Differences in Wine Learning
QUINI is a visual wine education and evaluation tool designed to help consumers in better understanding their own wine preferences, as they pro-actively learn and expand their experience and knowledge of wine. It is an app with an online platform that allows consumers to share how wines are being evaluated on different sensory qualities, from color to aroma, to taste and finish. The app is visually appealing (see Figure 1) and walks the consumer through steps for forming an overall evaluation for the wine, so that the ratings across consumers are systematic, irrespective of their wine knowledge or expertise. Users report enjoying the experience and sharing their results with others.
QUINI.
QUINI offers both online and in-person tastings using their software and attracts wine-interested consumers. They have been collecting data on wine education and consumer behavior since 2016. In 2019, we mined nearly 3 years of consumer QUINI wine tasting sensory and event participation data. Specifically, we wanted to see to what degree millennials (24–42 years of age), Gen Z (21–23 years old), Gen X (43–54 years old), and baby boomers (55–70 years old) engaged with wine.
We first looked at the number of overall interactions. We found that millennials have been engaging with wine on QUINI more than Gen X and baby boomers. We then considered the number of individual reviews written about wines on the app from 2017 to the first part of 2019 (see Table 1). Gen Z has been increasing steadily as more of their consumers have become a legal drinking age.
Number of Reviewers.
We also considered the wine ratings themselves—are some groups giving less harsh reviews than others? Being more critical in a wine review may be considered as a proxy for a more discerning taster. In 2017, the median rating by a millennial wine drinker on QUINI stood at 81.70/100; Gen X at 81.22/100, and the baby boomers at 78.22/100. In 2018, the numbers were 79.61, 79.65, and 80.34, respectively, showing that the younger groups became more discerning. Gen Z drinkers also proved they felt qualified to express an opinion about wine. Diligently they completed full wine reviews, detailing their observations around a wine’s various aspects, just like their more experienced peers. The wine rating median by a Gen Z was 79.42 in 2018.
The data suggest that with the right tech tools to engage and create memorable experiences, rising generations, both millennials and Gen Zs, are proving their interest in participating in a digitized learning experience providing insight into H2. Our next task was to survey QUINI participants about their involvement in wine education and motivations about wine. Olsen et al. (2007) found that the way the generations are socialized to drink wine influences their motivation and interest. Our interest concerned whether the generations exhibited differences in hedonic and eudaimonic motivations toward wine. We also were interested in whether there was any difference in wine education and wine tourism across the generations.
Method
An online survey was distributed to QUINI wine participants in U.S. and Canadian wine tastings during the Summer/Fall 2019. A total of 81 participants completed the survey (36 baby boomers, 21 Gen Xers, 21 millennials, only 3 Gen Z reported so they were not included in the analysis).
Measures
The Hedonic and Eudaimonic scales from the PEAQ-S used in Study 1 were also employed here. The hedonic items loaded on one factor with a Cronbach’s alpha = .84 were combined into a Hedonic Index. The eudaimonic items loaded on one factor with a Cronbach’s alpha = .92 were combined to form an Eudaimonic Index.
Results
Hedonic/Eudaimonic motivation
GLM was run with generation as the independent variable and the Hedonic and Eudaimonic Indices as dependent measures. For Hedonic motivation, the overall model was significant at F(2, 75) = 3.22, p = .05, with means Gen X = 26.38, millennial = 30.24, baby boomer = 29.47. These were not significantly different from one another. For Eudaimonic, the model was significant at F(2, 75) = 5.32, p = .007. Gen X was found to be significantly lower than the other two generations using Tukey’s procedure, Gen X = 18.00, millennial = 24.52, baby boomer = 23.5.
Wine education and tourism involvement
Boomers and millennials were more likely to engage in wine education than Gen X: 50.2% baby boomers, 38.1% millennials, and 14.29% Gen X had indicated taking wine classes, significantly different at χ2(2, N = 78) = 7.25, p = .03. In terms of tourism associated with wine, the generations also differed but here Gen X showed greater engagement: 88.89% baby boomers indicated they traveled for wine, 66.7% Gen X, and 52.38% millennials, significantly different at χ2(2, N =78) = 9.58, p = .008. This most likely represents differences in buying power across generations (“Wine Industry Looks to Millennials for Growth, But Sales Data Shows Gen X Holds the Real, Immediate Potential,” 2019).
Discussion
Consistent with Study 1, we found that those who were engaged in wine education also showed greater Eudaimonic tendencies with wine (baby boomers and millennials). Gen X showed hedonic interest and have begun to travel for wine tourism so there is an opportunity to engage them in fun, hedonic ways to increase their pleasure and overall attitude toward wine.
Managerial Implications
Our research shows that younger consumers are interested in learning about wine, they just need a different approach than what was used with their parents. Making the learning fun and different, such as having them draw their taste, can increase younger consumer’s appreciation of wine. Embracing new ways to communicate through visual technology can provide the wine industry a positive path forward to developing future wine consumers.
We suggest that the industry embrace the new technology, and move beyond numerical ratings and “expert” descriptors that has been the mainstay of wine communication and education in the past. Instead, the industry should focus on how they can help the consumer learn more about how to develop their own individual preferences. The visual aspect of QUINI makes it not only approachable but also the interactive app allows the consumer to get in touch with how they experience aspects of the wine taste which allows them to experience the eudaimonic growth in tasting that many desire.
During COVID wine consumption increased more so than other alcoholic beverage such as beer or spirits (Penn, 2020): “What I’m seeing in this COVID trend is it’s millennials that are really upping consumption, discovering wine, and having the experience of having wine as an everyday thing at home,” John Gillespie, author of the Wine Opinion survey. He calls COVID a transformative moment for this generation, and what happens next with this group will be driven by their experiences with the wine industry. Online zoom tastings have become the industry’s hottest drinking trend (Moore, 2020), although not all are equally engaging.
While initially getting together with friends and family for a night cap on Zoom was an effective way to socialize, some wine marketers have stepped up to offer unique experiences. Nockingpoint wines, for example, teamed up with Carl’s Jr. to offer a Burger Box of three wines to pair with the newly released “Thickburger.” The winery saw it as a “fun opportunity” to provide consumers the much-missed steakhouse experience at home (Kelso, 2020).
Millennials and Gen Z consumers have not only sought different types of wine education content, they also have shifted to other media. Podcasts like “Wine Blast” and “Wine for Normal People” provide information in an accessible way. Planet of the Grapes by Jason Wilson, http://www.1winedude.com/planet-of-the-grapes-for-millennials-jason-wilson/ encourage wine drinkers to find obscure, interesting bottles with stories . . .
In my experience, millennials don’t necessarily see wine at the top of some imaginary Ladder of Beverage Knowledge anymore. They want excitement. They want fun. They want surprise. They don’t want to be bored. I think people of my generation maybe just assumed being bored was part of wine education.
Wine television has never taken off in the way food TV has, until the “Wine Show” came about. The show mixed wine tastings, tourism, with snippets of culture. It found unique ways to teach about tasting wine, such as through coffee tastings, and intermingling fun facts such as noting that President Nixon drank Chateau Margaux while serving guests off-brand California reds.
Experiential learning activities like the pop-up Rose mansion in NYC once captured the attention of millennial consumers. Now the experiences are virtual, where you can pay for a bespoke tasting of Napa Quintessa (for $300) or make your own home tasting kit with Vineyard View Winery where they will send three branded glasses, a tasting sheet, and their wines (Hines, 2020).
Online wine sales dropped during the summer 2020, leading some to wonder if the increase was only due to pandemic fear (Dingwall, 2020). This new look at wine, however, can be viewed as an opportunity to re-engage consumers lost to the traditional old-school way of marketing wine and the distancing language employed. Wine needs a great story to attract millennials, and it also has to provide it in an authentic meaningful way.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article.
