A recent survey conducted by Vinexpo on women and wine in United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong and the US showed that cultural differences are an important factor of differentiation in appreciating wine.

What did those women agree upon? They usually prefer red wine over white wine. They are driving the sales for rosé wines:  16% said they’d rather drink rosé (over only 6% in 2009). This is an increase of 160% in 2 years! 70% drink wine while socializing with friends or on a date: 68% consider wine important and even essential on a romantic dinner. French women are leading the trend with 50% of the answers while 10% of British women and 5% of Hong Kong female drinkers would not go on a date without some wine.

This first breach in the consensus opens the door to the deeper cultural differences. Women do not agree on the factors leading to their choice. 70% of French women consider that the country of origin is their first criteria while it is important for only 50,8% of British women. In the USA, grape variety is the most important criteria – not surprisingly. Price (58,5%) and country of origin (67,8%) are most important in Hong Kong.

The deepest difference appears with the question : is wine part of tradition or a part of your lifestyle? American women answer loudly and strongly that wine is part of a lifestyle while for French women it is part of the tradition.

This survey is an interesting marketing tool because it was conducted on line in 5 countries in partnership with several sites of various magazines: Elle in France and Hong Kong, Konsum Göttinnen in Germany, Wine Enthusiast in the US and Decanter in England. Interestingly enough, the sites partnering with Vinexpo are not wine-related in France, Hong Kong and Germany. They are more lifestyle- or -women-related magazines. In UK and in the US, it is the opposite: the surveyed women were readers of wine magazines, but they claimed wine as a lifestyle choice.

Even more fascinating is the use of Internet as a tool. The survey revealed that the women wine drinkers in the age 18-30 are using most the Internet (14%) while in France only 3% go on line to look for wine. Let’s just hope that Internet will be more and more used to discover wine(s) from all over the world, and not only by women.

In 1999, the Web was still considered an innovation in Europe. In France, 11,6% were connected; 100,000 adventurous people are managing their bank accounts on line; e-commerce brings 200,000 euros! It was also the time of the Internet boom: start-ups are getting millions from angels and investors. After two years of euphoria and craziness, it is the krach. But, in spite of that, one third of the French population was connected – mostly by cable. Amazon.com and ebay.com opened their French site. A healthy sign of confidence in the new economy! In 2004, 12 million French were on line, more than 50% connected by cable or high-speed. Apple launched its iTunes platform in France. In 2005, two years after the US, French people became addicted to blogs. 2 million French bloggers appeared almost over night! In 2006, advertising on line brought several million euros. In 2007, the iPhone became available in France. In 2009, over 32 million French people were connected; they were aware of Facebook and discovering Twitter.

Of course, France is not the most Internet friendly country. Regulation is the keyword for the French administration on connectivity, privacy, wine, advertising, e-commerce. In spite of all the restrictions, France is opening up to the 21st century. To look at the future, one has to look at the US. In the last ten years, I saw tremendous innovations coming from the US in the wine industry: services for wineries such as VinoVisit.com, search engine specifically tailored to wine like ablegrape.com, think tanks like VinTank.com, on line wineries such as Crushpad, new packaging. I also saw some innovations coming from Europe, like the unique code designed by adegga.com in Portugal.

New consumers generated new marketing strategies and new trends: women and Millennials, emerging countries. China and India became the new powers – first by the exponential number of wine consumers but mainly by their potential production.

Let’s not forget the incredible wine communities spread all over the Internet in already existing communities: wine groups in LinkedIn.com, pages or groups on Facebook, networks on Twitter now helped by the search. Individuals became leaders and carry the new trends to new countries and new consumers. It would be incredibly long and difficult to mention all the innovations but i’m really amazed by what happened on the Net in ten years.

I look forward to witnessing and being a modest part of the formidable innovations that will take place in the next ten years. Welcome to 2010!

The International Associated Women in Wine conducted a study on the consumption of wine by European women. The results were announced in June 2008 during the general Assembly of the organization and the official analysis was just released.

Some intriguing points were raised by the answers to the questionnaire, depending on the country where it was issued. Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Spain and Hungary were covered by the study.

First topic covered was women as wine buyers: in all countries, they buy local wines, shop in supermarkets (65% for Italy and 40% for Greece), in wineries (Switzerland, 68%) and in wine stores (Spain, 40,7%). Italian women buy wine for their home (35%) and to drink with their friends (22%); 54% of Greek women buy for their home; 88% of the Swiss for meals for friends; Spaniards for home (55%) and Hungarian mostly for home.

As wine consumers, women are full of surprise and have very different behavioral patterns from one country to an other one:

Where do women drink wine?

-Italy : 33% in restaurants
- Switzerland: 93% at home with friends

Spain: 70.6 % at home with the family

Hungary: mainly (without percentage) at home with friends

Which wines do they usually drink?

Italy: 48% red

53% light-fruity

54 % still

Greece: 61 % red

56 % white

37% dry

24% still

Switzerland: 89,8 % red

52.2% full bodied with intense flavor

53,8 % white

34.9% still

42.5% dry

Spain: 100% red

and 46.9% white

31.2% light-fruity

21.9% sparkling

Women also have a good wine knowledge: they attended wine seminars and tastings as well as they visited wineries to expand and diversify their knowledge. They know the main grape varietals of their country as well as in what order wines should be served at a meal.

In spite of its limits, this study shows general patterns in consuming and buying wines among European women. The International Associated Women in Wine is now working on a more complete and scientific study conducted in every European country.

Marketers are always on the look out for new consumers. They seem to have bypassed an interesting category, the Boomer Woman. What is so different between a Boomer Man and a Boomer Woman? A Boomer Woman just spent 20 or 25 years of her life building her career, child rearing and managing a home. Women feel like they now have a lot of time and a lot more money to devote to themselves. Their discretionary income improved a lot and they now have an important professional and personal network. They are connected, they have a Facebook account and sometimes are even on Twitter.

According to a recent study by VibrantNation’s “Well-Connected and Wired,” a quantitative study of 1000 Boomer women, “boomer women influence 80% of the $2.1 trillion in consumer goods purchases made by the boomer demographic each year — the largest of any segment of the population. Every day, 8 of 10 boomers are online, making them the largest online consumer.”

What does it mean for brands in general? Most of the time, those women don’t refer to advertising or television to make their buying decisions. They listen to other women of their kind, whether on line or off line. They are ready to indulge and pamper themselves. How can a wine brand tap in this market? Wine and food are very seductive and part of everyday life. Wine brands should appeal to the tastes and skills of those women. Pink labels and silly names? Why not? Wine can be fun. If behind the pink label and the silly name, there is a good wine, then there will be a happy consumer. This happy consumer will refer the brand to her peers and this piece of good news will go around. QED!

2009 is the 350th anniversary of South African wine production. South Africa is now a wine producing country largely recognized in many parts of the world – at the sad exception of a few European countries. France is one of them but fortunately, every two years, a charity auction reminds French wine lovers that South African wines are gorgeous.

The charity auction is organized every two years in Paris by the Artcurial Auction House. The beneficiary of the auction is the Phelophepa Health Train, which means “Good clean health” in Tswana. Born in 1994, the brainchild of two dynamic women who renovated and transformed an old train into a brand new medical train, with its own generators, it meanders through the rural regions of South Africa bringing medical treatment to people who do not have access to doctors due to their economic and geographical situations, far from urban medical infrastructures.
The train stops for 4 to 5 days in small towns across the country for 10 months each year before its annual 2 month refurbishment for the following year. The train has several medical units; dentistry and eye clinics, general practitioners, pediatric and psychology units and carries out screening for diabetes, for example.
The Phelophepa was given an award by the United Nations in 2008 for outstanding community service, a recognition of the importance and effective care given to patients of all ages and cultures.

As a tribute to the handful of French Huguenots who arrived in the Cape in 1688, the 2009 Phelophepa auction will carry not only some outstanding South African wines but also some exceptional wines from great French producers who have vinous links to South Africa, such as Lurton, Angélus, Rolland, Laroche, Gosset, Schaal, or Moueix.

2009 is the Third Edition of this very special Charity Auction. The two previous events enabled 63 000 people to be treated and many French wine lovers to discover the gorgeous South African wines.

Isn’t it the proof that wine is good for your health? If you are in Paris on October 27th, stop at the Artcurial Auction House and be part of a beautiful event. For more detail, contact Allison Bonnett.

This is the very unusual sight I came across today. At first the title of the article read: “Wine for women”. I got mildly annoyed and was about to move away when a sentence caught my eye: “Every smile has a story. And many stories are shared over a glass of wine”. Banal? Yes, but true. In our days of bad news, a smile is to be treasured preciously.

Back to wine! SmileVino is a weird but touching try to reach people through the best of their heart. Each label depicts a woman smiling. Each smile carries a different emotion: compassion, accomplishment, whatever. The back label tells the story behind the smile. What about the wine? There are two bottles – one of Merlot and one of Chardonnay, both from California. My feeling is that the wine is just the messenger for woman’s charities in various communities in spite of Nancy Moore, vice-president, affirmation: “Our signature Chardonnay and Merlot were specially created in California and offer a fresh taste for wine lovers.”

I like the positive side of the story: smile, telling a positive story, giving back to the community. But why only women and why so little on the wines?

I have a couple of issues with gender marketing applied to the wine business. First, many studies showed clearly that women don’t have special attraction to “feminine” wines, such as pink or sweet wines. Second, women are now learned in wine: they know what they like and what they want to buy. Last but not least, they are usually sharp shoppers and detect easily the false bargain or the marketing trick. Because let’s be honest and even brutal: a wine designed for women is usually poorly made – too sweet, heavy, poorly balanced. Give us real wines – with a smile, yes but also a wine that will bring a smile to our face!

Wine marketing is a funny line of work. A recent Vinexpo study showed that women despise “women wines” – i.e. “pink” or “sweet wines” – specifically designed for them and favor red wines. On the other end, Michelle Locke from the San Francisco Chronicle cites Nelson Barber, an associate professor of hospitality management at Texas Tech University who has studied gender differences in marketing wine, who said: “”As a general rule, guys get together, they don’t want to be seen with a glass of wine”.

Locke is obviously talking about American men. European men don’t feel embarrassed to be shown a glass of wine in hand – quite the opposite. It is a flattering and glamorous image of a refined and elegant manhood. What’s wrong in drinking wine for an American man? Men drink more beer than wine – true. Is it because beer is a symbol of masculinity in the US?

We are touching now the delicate subject of cultural differences. In Europe, beer is not connected with any social values, such as elegance, culture or refinement. On the contrary, it is a “popular” drink – one for picnic or for the “café” before going home. It’s not young or trendy: it’s the drink of the middle-aged, very medium income male. Wine carries historical values going over gender differences: it is the drink of the well educated and refined people.

The wine drinking America doesn’t have yet this kind of cultural references. Wine is more recent in consumption history and doesn’t carry the same image of quality and style for men. But I’m sure men will come to recognize the values of wine as they recognize the importance of… cosmetics and colognes!

A recent study presented by Vinexpo raved about the newly discovered taste of women for red wine and their resistance to health warnings. The surveys were conducted over web sites in several countries. Are such surveys reliable for a marketing study? The Vinexpo surveys were conducted among female readers of several wine magazines web sites. How couldn’t be the results biased? Women reading on line wine magazines are basically interested in wine and would have learned opinions. But go ask any woman in the street: the answers would be totally different.

Should we dismiss such a survey? Not quite. We learn that women interested in wine enjoy red wine, are not fooled by wines targeting them as their specific consumers – the pink Bitch brand, for example – or by health warning. They know that a glass of red wine a day or from time to time won’t endanger their life.

It is also interesting to cross-reference those results with those of other surveys on female wine drinkers. Whether they’re neophyte or amateur, there is one common trend: the price is a big factor of their decision. They’ll chose the wine on sale or pick the one which seems to be a good bargain. Women very rarely buy expensive wines.

Women might not be quite – yet – the future of wine but there is a strong potential that producers and marketers should explore.

On June 22, 2009, during Vinexpo in Bordeaux, more than 80 female winemakers will gather to defend the culture of wine and the essential values of their trade in a special event and tasting held at the Cité Mondiale des Vins. In a time where wine is targeted as evil and unhealthy in France, it is a very welcome decision to see female wine professionals ready to defend their culture and values.

The winemakers come from all regions of France: Burgundy, beaujolais, Rhone Valley, Provence, Languedoc Roussillon and Medoc. For the occasion, a new group of female winemakers joined forces in a new organization, “Femmes du Sud” (Southern Women): they are all from Languedoc Roussillon and will promote their beautiful and underestimated region under the guidance of Marketing Director, Catherine Mell.

Last week, Bordeaux was buzzing with journalists, importers and wine professionals tasting the 2008 vintage on the Left and the Right banks of the Garonne River. It is always an exciting and fun time: when getting to a tasting room, one usually runs in a friend or a colleague not seen since the previous Futures week or can chat with a winemaker whose wines are tasting wonderfully or so different from the 2007 vintage. What happened? Why is it so different? Conversations are lenghthy and make everybody late for the next stop.

This year I limited my tasting to the Right bank and the Graves: along with my colleague Jean-Louis Carbonnier of Carbonnier Communications in New York, I went from L’Envers du Décor in Saint-Emilion (page in French), owned by François des Ligneris, former owner of Chateau Soutard and current owner of a very interesting range of wines to the tasting of La Grappe organization to the Biodynamic Wines Fair. The afternoon was devoted to the Classified Growths of Saint-Emilion and Pomerol before joining Michèle Piron-Soulat in Bordeaux for a tasting of the white wines of the Graves. A busy but great day!

“La Grappe” (the clutter) is an association of winemakers and vintners from all over France. They take advantage of the Futures Week to present their new vintage to the press and the trade. I had the pleasure of tasting the 2007 and 2008 vintages of Chateau Chambert in Cahors. Philippe Lejeune, new owner of this beautiful estate, managed his two new vintages with the help of consultant Stephane Derenoncourt. The wines taste almost like Bordeaux wines: smooth and rich in red fruit aromas. In spite of an obvious ageing potential, they drink very weel, even as young as they were. If you want a taste of the new style of Chambert without waiting too long, get the little brother of Chateau Chambert, the second wine. Before moving on to the next tasting, I “cleaned” my palate with a few extra-ordinary white wines: the libanese Château Marsyas and the 2006 Bargylus white from Syria (site in French). And then back to France with a wonderfully balanced Savennières Domaine FL wine (site in French).

Then on to the biodynamic wines. I was very curious about them having almost no experience in this field. Thanks to Jean-Louis who knew a lot more than I do, I was introduced to some famous (and famously good) biodynamic wines. I started with the Champagne of Françoise Bedel with nos sugar added: a real delight, moved on to Josmeyer‘s wines, stopped at Zind-Humbrecht‘s table and spent a little time with La Tour Grise’s vineyard manager. La Tour Grise produces traditional Cabernet Franc and Chenin blanc of exquisite quality. And then… surprise! I was invited to taste two bubblies: a rosé Cabernet Franc and a white Chenin, both fresh, fun and very low in alcohol (around 7%). They’re delightful and I strongly recommend them: they are unusual and their label is so much fun! The manager told me men consider those two wines as “feminine” and disdain them when women just fall for them. I must confess I was one of those!

After a delightful lunch at L’Envers du Décor and a tasting of François des Ligneris’s new range of wines (don’t worry, I’ll tell you everything about them very soon), we drove to the Union des Grands Crus Classés various tastings. In St Emilion and Pomerol, we were in the elegant world of the Classified Growths. The wines are of high quality, smooth and very good for such a difficult year. We now have to wait for the prices to come out. Yesterday Angelus opened fire by offering the 2008 vintage at 50 euros, the same price as the 2004 vintage and 40% lower than the 2007 vintage. We’ll see soon how the other Classified growths and famous estates are going to position their price.