This week we are joined by Christian Miller, proprietor of Full Glass Research and director of research for Wine Opinions.
This concept has a fairly long cultural history in the U.S. wine business, from the notion that red wines are drunk by men and white wines by women to the idea that wine in general was a women’s drink and men preferred beer. These cruder and more basic notions have been generally discarded, but our preference for easy generalities still pops up in ideas about differences between what men and women want in wine. The fact that there are genuine biological differences in sensory perception between genders helps fuel these ideas.
We’re getting some answers and insights into this issue at Wine Opinions. Wine Opinions is a research company that has created a panel of over 2000 core involved wine consumers, geographically and demographically representative of the wine buyers who really drive the market for fine wines. We do market research for a variety of wineries, and grower/winery organizations. During the course of this research, we often look for patterns or trends by gender in consumer opinion.
First, a few basic facts. Core wine drinkers – those who drink wine once a week or more often - are 46% male, 54% female. This group consumes over 80% of the wine in the U.S. However, the gender ratio more than reverses in California, where the majority of core wine drinkers are men. Males are more likely to state they drink mostly red wine, 40% to 27%, but this ratio evens out among newer, younger wine drinkers.
So to add fuel to the fire, here is some data on the women vs. men wine debates, based on some of our recent studies.
Do varietal preferences differ between males vs. females?
Not very much. In a recent study of merlot, 36% of females named merlot "one of their favorites," whereas 24% of males did so. But 51% of males stated that they "liked it, although it was not a favorite" vs. 38% of females. Meanwhile neutral or negative views of merlot showed no statistical difference between sexes. So the overall proportion with a positive view of merlot is even between males and females.
When given a hypothetical choice among $10 varietals for having on hand at home, the same skew was seen in merlot. In addition females were more likely to choose pinot noir, but the other varietals showed no gender differences. When the choice was changed to picking a wine over $20 for a dinner party, females again were slightly more likely to choose pinot noir than males, but the merlot differences evened out. Females were slightly more enthusiastic about zinfandel, but otherwise there were no significant gender differences.
In an earlier Wine Opinions study of pinot grigio, consumption was about equal between the sexes, although females tended to rate pinot grigio from Italy or California slightly higher than males.
One finding that has been consistent is that male core wine drinkers do seem more experimental, and to have tried a wider variety of wines.
Are there "chick brands"?
Presumably purchase or consumption of some brands skew male or female, but based on a recent study of "fun brands" in the $8-12 range, it’s not obvious. We measured trial and opinions on 15 different brands with fanciful or "critter" labels, where a sense of humor was part of the packaging or positioning. Among these, females did tend to favor the Rex Goliath and Fat Bastard brands, but for the remaining 13 brands there were no significant differences in ratings between males and females, including wines like Little Penguin, Three Thieves, Screw Kappa Napa and Toasted Head.
Are wine geeks mostly men? How about those point-chasers?
If by "wine geeks" you mean people who drink wine frequently, have distinct opinions about wine brands and styles and spring for expensive wines regularly, the answer is no.
Men are somewhat more likely to purchase more expensive wines. In the Wine Opinions panel, those who purchase $40+ wines frequently are 4% female, 7% male; not a statistically significant difference at that sample size. Those who report buying such wines occasionally are 19% female, 31% male. This difference shrinks considerably for $20-40 wines and disappears below $20. However, since females constitute a larger number of core wine drinkers overall, the actual number of $20+ wine drinkers in the population is quite close, only slightly favoring males.
The gender difference does grow starker as you go up the price spectrum. When asked if they have ever bought wines priced $100 or more, 45% of Wine Opinions males say yes vs. 24% of females. And among those who do purchase such bottles, men on average bought more. Furthermore the wine collector skews clearly male. They are much more likely to have 100 or more bottles at home, whereas females are more likely to have 1-12 bottles at home. BUT there is a big asterisk on these numbers. Income has a strong influence on high end wine purchases, and females on average report lower household incomes than males. In fact, when you correct for income distribution, female and male purchasing patterns are substantially the same except for those 100+ bottle collectors, who still skew male.
Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator readers skew male, 4-1 for Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, 2-1 for the Wine Spectator. Males also stated higher influence on buying decisions for these publications, so it is reasonable to assume that the "point-chasing" is a more of a male activity.
Is this whole big /high alcohol / ultraripe wine style a guy thing?
The Wine Opinions panel can only answer what people think about such wines, since you can’t run actual controlled tasting panels over the internet. However, the answer based on perceptions appears to be no. In one study, we gave people a choice of zinfandels, with the only significant difference being alcohol levels. Men were less likely to pick the highest alcohol wine, although the difference was borderline statistically. In addition, men were more likely to agree with the statement that wine over 15% was too high in alcohol.
When various wine descriptors were tried on the panel, there were no gender differences between preferences for wines described as light, balanced or heavy. Similarly, there were no differences by gender in reacting to different types of wine reviews, ranging from "huge, ultraripe, intense" to "elegant, silky, understated, harmonious."
In sum, there are taste and style differences between male and female wine drinkers but they tend to be quite subtle once you remove the effects of income, age and other factors. Collecting wine seems to be more of a male activity, males are more likely to be swayed by reviews and they tend in surveys to be more opinionated in general regarding wine and wine-related topics. However, actual taste preferences are less obvious, and brands that might seem aimed at a particular gender don’t necessarily end up on target. In short, you better do your homework before assuming someone’s taste in wine based on their gender.
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Christian Miller is proprietor of Full Glass Research and directs research for Wine Opinions. More information on the Wine Opinions panel and reports can be found at www.wineopinions.com. Christian can be reached via www.fullglassresearch.com (click on Contact Me).
Very interesting! Christian, how do you select participants for your surveys?
Posted by: Mary Baker | May 25, 2006 at 09:00 PM
Indeed, I think that from one geographical region to another, from one sub-culture to another, and in different economic strata there will be some notable differences in wine preferences between men and women. In this, doing market research and analysis makes good sense and in no way whatsoever offends.
What does offend however, is the policy of stereotyping, making assumptions based on those stereotypes and then basing advertising campaigns and even bottle designs on those. What also offends is the use of such terms as "chick wines". Why not "wines preferred by women" or, for that matter "men" instead of "chicks".
As I have stated often enough, I am not making any attempt at being politically correct. I consider political correctness little more than a polite term for social bullshit. I am, however, saying that we should have gone well past that time when we think of or label women as "chicks", "skirts", "dames", or "broads".
And, with apologies to the author of this intelligent article - that applies even to titles of articles.
Ye faithful curmudgeon
Rogov
Posted by: Daniel Rogov | May 27, 2006 at 08:44 AM
Wine Opinions panel members are recruited on the web by a proprietary mix of methods, designed to reduce bias from single source recruiting. The vast majority of Wine Opinions panel members are high-frequency core wine drinkers, representing all to U.S. states. Based on benchmarking vs. large scale Wine Market Council research, the Wine Opinions panel is very representative of about 16 million core involved wine drinkers.
The use of the term "chick wines" was wholly ironic or tongue-in-cheek in this article, based on the common and mindless usage of "chick" as a modifier for various activities. As the article demonstrates, such stereotyping is quite foolish.
Christian
Posted by: Christian Miller | May 30, 2006 at 03:14 PM