According to the recent Wilson Drinks Report only 3% of consumers claim that brand is the main influence on their choice of wine. Colour, grape variety and deal were much more important.
If that’s so, why brand wine? And how? What consumer problem does branding the bottle serve? What value does branding add for the consumer?
The first – and most successful – attempt to brand wine was the Australian focus on making grape varieties into brands. Aussie Chardonnay (think yellow, buttery, oaky – and sickly) was the first global wine brand. It placed the consumer firmly into Bridget Jones’ territory. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Shiraz followed in the Big C’s footprints. And those names made a big difference. When French wine regulations forced M&S to re-label a French wine with the French grape name Syrah instead of Shiraz (same grape, New World name) sales instantly fell 50%.
But Chardonnay is an infinitely mutable grape. In the hands of a good wine-maker it can take on a range of different identities – unlike Cab Sauv which is rich, blackcurranty and tannic in all its worldwide manifestations.
The Australian (and American) wineries therefore also developed a second model, that of manufacturer brands – focused on wine-makers such as Gallo, Robert Mondavi or Wolf Blass, places real or invented such as Blossom Hill or Jacob’s Creek and, more recently, on ‘critter brands’ such as the phenomenally successful Yellowtail and its paler imitators, which have adopted the style and production values of the alco-pops they strive to emulate.
Most of them are ‘made wines’ in the sense that whilst they may evoke a place they rarely taste of or come from that place. Consider the case of ‘Red Bicyclette’ – the French-produced Gallo wine which sells a ‘relaxed’ lifestyle. It turned out not to be made from Pinot Noir grapes as promised on the bottle but from lesser (and far cheaper) grapes. You might blame the French co-ops for the swindle; you might also question how it was that executives at Gallo were unable to either taste the difference or realise that the volumes of purported Pinot Noir they were buying far exceeded the total wine production of that variety.
There is a third model of branded wine though. It’s the retailer house brand approach pioneered by UK supermarkets. Very successful in broadening range and experience and enticing consumers to climb the quality and price ladder in pre-crash days, it’s now under threat from the Aldi and Asda low-price model.
Retailers have high quality buyers who know their wine and can get better deals from desperate producers so it usually produces better value than manufacturer brands. But, remember that the liquid in a £3.50 bottle costs no more than 5-10p. To get £1’s worth of wine you need to pay around £5.50. For the best value it’s worth spending around £10-12. It turns out that there are very few points on the price value curve and very few categories (including champagne) where buying a manufacturer branded wine makes economic or emotional sense. So the 97% who don’t choose by brand are probably making the right decision.
