The Return on Investment of Wine Education

June 14, 2011 in marketing with 34 Comments

 

… or why “consumers need more wine education” is wrong

It would appear to be widely accepted in the wine trade that if only consumers knew more about wine, the more, better (and higher profit) wines they’d buy.

“Consumer Education” in the form of brochures, seminars, events, newsletters, websites, apps, social networks, trips etc, form part of most every wine marketing plan (assuming they’ve even bothered). To quote one recent example, Tom Lewis (aka @CambWineBlogger) in a discussion on this topic initiated by Wink Lorch (aka @WineTravel):

(what we need is) more wine education, so people start to want better wines and feel confident about searching for them …

In other words, it isn’t a problem with the wine or how it is made available, it is really about a lack of knowledge. We can fix that. Right?

The basic mental model this is based on is something like this:

Simple model of ROI in wine education

Simple model of ROI in wine education

If you increase Education (i.e. invest some effort to learn) then consumers get a corresponding increase in Enjoyment. The more you put in, the more you get out.

Of course, this is flawed. Nothing in life is that easy for a start, but if this isn’t right, what might the model actually look like, what would it teach us about how to improve the customer’s “ROI”?

Let’s start with a couple of assumptions:

  1. You don’t NEED to understand wine to appreciate it
  2. Wine doesn’t matter – at least to most people

To an ‘expert’, wine might mean more than just the alcoholic beverage you actually drink. It is also the final outcome of a winery/winemaker’s efforts and the story of that creation, but also the culture of wine that led to this effort in the first place.

BUT, the vast majority of people are not, and do not want to be, experts. For many, wine is a slightly extravagant way of getting intoxicated.

However, there are always those whose interest is sparked by something, maybe a story or an unusual experience, or they see some potential reward in knowing more about wine, so they consider “learning about wine”. What awaits them? What are the “investments” they need to make, and what are the potential “rewards”?

Investments

TIME: the most obvious is the amount of time one has to spend; wine courses, reading books, magazines and blogs, attending tastings, in the wine aisle and in shops, browsing, taking notes, recording, reviewing

MONEY: this is an expensive hobby. Wine tutors, books and tastings all cost money. In addition, as you explore wine more, you inevitably spend more per bottle than before (I remember my WSET tutor apologising for this fact in my first ever class).

EFFORT: it isn’t just the time and money, you have to care! To get a lot out of your wine studies, you must dedicate a certain effort to recall information, to look out for materials, to pass exams that open doors to the next level of education achievement

FACE: “Oh, you’ve done those wine classes. Why don’t you choose the wine today?” says your boss, your partner, best friend, etc. The cost is the performance stress every time a wine list arrives at the table, and the risk of failure.

Well, that’s all well and good, but there are great rewards, too. Right?

Rewards

EXPERIENCES: Knowing more about wine means having an idea of what you want, and getting what you expected; the “right” wine for the moment. It means you can match these moments according to the style of a wine, but also to its story and personality (celebrating a surprise win? Why choose any old Champagne when you could be drinking that English sparkling wine that surprised everyone by beating the Champenois by coming top in a recent competition!)

AVOID MISTAKES (?): It is related to the above, but many people who start in wine education do so to “buy better wines and know which ones are actually cr*p”. Avoiding such mistakes is a strong motivator to get started … but how realistic is it?

SAVE MONEY (?): Another reward people might hope for is that by knowing more about wine, they can spend the same, or maybe even less, than they do now but find wines that please them more. [If only! There are very few, except for maybe City employees drinking expensive wines on expense accounts, that might fall into this category.]

… : What else?

The problem is, the rewards are a lot harder to list and quantify than the costs. Unless you are looking to invest in wine and you want to know what to buy and sell, then wine knowledge is a personal achievement.

Unlike other popular hobbies, wine knowledge is hard to share. If you had ‘invested’ the same in learning about music you could talk to your friends in the pub or at work, it might even help on quiz night. If you’d been studying electronics, or flower arranging, you could make or fix something. Wine is more esoteric.

So what might the graph of Return vs Investment for wine education actually look like for an average wine consumer? Well, I suggest it might look like this red line:

An alternative view of the ROI from wine education

An alternative view of the ROI from wine education

To explain, let me highlight four consumers at particular locations on this continuum:

A. The Average Consumer

You don’t need to know about wine to appreciate it. In fact, good shops and even the supermarkets are doing some of the work for you. They’ve selected wines, categorised them, written tasting notes and might even be willing to recommend one specifically for you. Effort required = ZERO.

This is where the VAST majority of consumers exist (in the UK) and, in fact, where a lot SHOULD stay, and as the retailers get better, the “Return” increases further. Consumers are unlikely to really lose out in a competitive market.

B. The Wine Student

Having been tempted to start studying about wine, you find out you’ve paid several hundred £pounds for a course plus materials, given up several evenings and maybe even a weekend to attend the course. You’ve learned about many parts of the world that make wine. You have a list in your head, and maybe your wallet, of 50 grape varieties, and an understanding of the basics of winemaking.

However, when presented with a choice of wines in real-life situations, you are no wiser than before. You “haven’t done Italian wines yet” and you are not sure how what you learned about the three sub-regions of Rioja can help to choose between the 10 different Crianza and Reserva wines on offer on the supermarket shelf.

In fact, you might even enjoy wine less if you avoid all the supermarket offers and instead take gambles on slightly more expensive wines you think you recognise, but turn out not to be what you expected.

You’ve been through basic training. It is a good foundation, but are you avoiding mistakes or making more? Do you feel more confident in restaurants or less? I know I suffered and almost gave up.

What are the options? Stop chucking money at it and go back to A), or plough on and invest more in the hope of getting greater rewards in future? Most people do the former.

C. The Wine Geek

You’ve spent a long time at it and wine studying is part of your life. You are comfortable spending time reading wine magazines and books, you’ve taken some courses, you’ve even visited some wineries. Your overall experience of wine is much improved and you are quite happy for people to ask you for advice.

The fact is, however, that you may still not have recouped what you’ve invested to achieve this. There are a lot of points between B) and D) where you are still in “deficit”, but as your appreciation increases, so do the ways of getting other rewards from this investment. You might get invited to exclusive tastings, meet winemakers, get invitations to visit wineries, take a look behind the scenes where tourists don’t normally go, and so on. It may also be that you are becoming known to your friends as “the wine expert” and are now able to help them find better bottles and have more fun. Your wine knowledge is appreciated as a skill, not an affectation. Great reward indeed!

D. The Master of Wine

Eventually, all this effort pays off and you are king, or queen, of the vinous mountain and you’ve probably earned the right to use the letters MW after your name. Few wine labels hide secrets from you, and many of the great names in the wine world know your name and send you personal messages and invitations. Your friends all applaud your status. There’s always much to learn, but you’ve cracked the code. Very few people ever reach this point.

Conclusions

What might this mean for our wine conversation?

First, lets all agree that the vast majority of wine consumers are exactly where they want to be: Enjoying the simple pleasures of drinking simple wine at affordable prices. The “heart zone” is real. We might argue over whether it is growing or shrinking, but there are plenty of places to pick up a decent bottle of wine without being asked to present a wine certificate.

Secondly, the “bubble zone” is real too. Why is it we have to convince people they NEED more wine education? It is because it is hard work and the rewards are not obvious. We don’t need to convince football fans to “learn” team histories, squad changes, fixture lists, etc. These happen normally because more people care, and once you’ve done it, they are rewarded in lots of subtle, social ways. They can join in more discussions with friends and even strangers in pubs and workplaces. Can they do that with wine? No! If you want a barometer of what a society thinks are “important” social topics, check out the categories in the local pub quiz. Sport. Films. History. TV. Literature. Where is Wine?

Instead of pushing people to invest more effort in wine education, we should be increasing the rewards for making that effort, responsibly.

Coming back to the assumptions mentioned above, we need to try to make wine matter while remembering that you don’t need to understand wine to achieve this.

Nike & Reebok didn’t make trainers ‘cool’ by explaining the technology of sports shoes, or by making them cheaper. They made them something people thought mattered, so the could compare with their mates, and invest in.

The best return on investment for the wine business is NOT to “educate” wine drinkers about the features of the wines, but to make wine in general a more relevant part of their lives, and therefore one they will want to be involved with. This is about making wine more fun, less stuffy, easier to share, more relevant, popular and engaging. This is not the same as lowering prices and quality.

Let’s get our trainers on, hum some Pink Floyd and go out and make wine more rewarding too!

 

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About Robert: Robert McIntosh is a wine blogger and online communicator on WineConversation.com, a prolific twitterer (@thirstforwine) and an occasional contributor to wine magazines as well as speaking at wine events. Robert is co-organiser of the annual European Wine Bloggers Conference and Born Digital Wine Awards, promotes international online wine communication, and advises companies about how to engage through social media. Robert also has some trouble communicating in the third person.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/RobertEJoseph Robert Joseph

    I could give you a tediously lengthy explanation of why I agree with you. As you’ll have seen elsewhere, I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the wine industry’s belief that its customers have to sort out its problems for it.

    A really great piece. It deserves wide circulation!

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      Thank you Robert

  • http://eatingadelaide.com Alex

    For the most part, I agree with you, but I’m not sure about your first assumption – that you don’t need to understand wine to appreciate it.

    A consumer probably doesn’t need to understand that much about wine to appreciate it but a little understanding will go a very long way.  We’ve all heard stories about people who don’t drink Chardonnay but happily knock back Chablis and I had a friend who drank NZ Sav Blanc almost exclusively until I gave her a prod towards Sancerre & Pouilly Fume.  She definitely didn’t need to go out and spend the time and money on, say, the WSET Intermediate course but that little bit of understanding went a (disproportionately) long way towards expanding her appreciation of wine.

    I’m a big fan of encouraging people to talk to wine retailers.  Go in and tell the sales staff what you’re eating, what the last wine you enjoyed was etc and they _should_ be able to point you in the direction of something you stand a chance of enjoying, and you’ll probably pick up a few titbits of info you’ll retain for later.   That’s wine education and I think the ROI on that is palpable.

    **Disclaimer – I do teach WSET courses, but I recognise they’re a significant expense and commitment that is not suited to many consumers.

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      You don’t need to understand wine to get good advice from friends or a shop. You are not a lesser wine drinker because you don’t know that Pouilly Fume is made from Sauvignon Blanc, it just means you can go exploring on your own if you do. 

      Like any exploration, you *might* have fun and discover great things, but then you might also make mistakes and get lost. That’s the hidden cost of straying from the easy life. 

      There are plenty of places to get advice without having to make the effort yourself, so why focus on the need for consumers to learn instead of our responsibility to reach out to them, and advise them better?

      • http://blog.edwardes.org Warren EDWARDES

        I am listening to Cardiff Singer of The World 2011. 
        http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_four/watchlive

        I am enjoying it tremendously. But the commentators views are helping. Perhaps I would enjoy the singing that much more if  a trained singer. But maybe I would be just looking for faults all the time and comparing singers with Pavarotti or Sutherland rather than delighting in them.

  • http://twitter.com/EverydayWinesUK Svenja Feix

    I couldn’t agree more.  Wine education (like other education, too, btw) should be about making the topic inclusive and accessible to many rather than breeding an exclusive club of snobs that  most Sauvignon Blanc swilling mummies wouldn’t even begin to wish to talk to . . . All I’d really like is for more people to drink nice wine that’s made by nice people – and if I can talk some people into that I’ll be quiet pleased with the result!

  • Louise Hurren

    Interesting
    post. I’ve gone from A, to B, and finally just about tipped into C (on a good day)
    over the space of nine years, but I seriously doubt I’d ever have made that
    transition if I hadn’t relocated to a wine-producing country and found myself surrounded by the stuff. Wine literally became more accessible: it was physically present wherever I turned (restaurants, bars, consumer shows and tastings, balades vigneronnes, wine routes, you name it), and price-wise, it was so much more within my budget (I soon realised I could get way more bang for my bucks in Languedoc than in London). It was not a conscious decision but a gradual, inevitable development. But for those who aren’t in this situation, I’m convinced that the transition is far less likely to happen, and thus I agree with the Roberts (both of them): for wine to up its pulling power, it has to become more popular, more fun to be with. To care about – or even love -  someone, you have to get to know them first. But if they’re too introverted, too stuck up or too self-obsessed, well hell… you move on to the next person, right? 
     

  • http://twitter.com/WineTravel Wink Lorch

    Congratulations, Robert for putting this together – most points I agree with at least partially if not entirely, even your conclusion.

    However, I feel there is something you are missing, or perhaps skirting around the edges, when discussing the concept of Wine Education. Let me stress first, that, as I think I articulated in your post last year about formal education for bloggers, I believe formal wine education up to a certain level is essential for all who wish to earn money in anythign connected to the wine business. But, it’s not ‘formal’ wine education that is required for wine consumers – it’s excellent quality, ‘informal’ wine education.

    Wine courses for consumers don’t have to end in exams and qualifications, they should end with a smile and an almost Gallic shrug (even if New World wines were on the menu) – good wine education is about entertainment with a modicom of education – that shrug is because you know there’s so much more to learn. You mentioned the word ‘fun’ twice in the piece, the first time stating that the wine geek has more fun once he/she has reached a certain stage – absolutely right they do. In your conclusion, though, you effectively divorce fun and wine education – there is absolutely no reason why the two can’t go together (even a good teacher of formal wine education should inject some fun into a course). Numerous times I have been greeted by a wine consumer who I don’t recognize who tells me they attended a single tasting of mine more than a decade ago and remembered it because it was such fun and changed their view on buying wine. This will never, ever apply to the huge numbers of wine consumers you described as ‘Average’ I know, but it does apply to that big area between ‘Average’ and a real ‘wine student’ and this is an area the wine business should court in my view.

    Wine education should be part of an overall marketing strategy – how big a part is of course the question and I can’t answer. However, As just one example, I simply don’t believe the wine generic bodies in the UK are wrong to support the Assocation of Wine Educators as so many of them do – they know that by making sure well-educated, qualified and entertaining people are speaking on their wines, their audiences will become new evangelists for those wines.

    Of course, how one educates on wine must evolve with time to adapt to new, younger audiences – that is something that several of us educators are grappling with right now. But let’s never forget that wine education must and can be fun.

    • http://www.catavino.net Ryan Opaz

      Wink, nothing wrong with wine education. Not at all, but it should be Opt-in, not Opt-out which many producers, retailers, and wine geeks feel like it should be. 

      A person can have 0 wine education, become very knowledgeable and enjoy wine their whole life. There is no NEED for education, unless you want to learn more. 

      Telling someone they need to learn about it before they enjoy it is a very bad idea. 

      More producers should lead with “drink this” then offer “learn more” not the other way around. Sherry is/was terrible at this, where for so long they talked about the complex beverage that you needed to understand to enjoy. #badidea – People need to fall in love first, or find the curiosity to dig deeper themselves! Don’t scare them with warnings that they “won’t understand it”.

      I know your a wine educator who wants more students! :) But the truth is, you are the second step in getting people to drink more wine, not always the first. 

      • http://twitter.com/WineTravel Wink Lorch

        Wine education is not about trying to get people to drink more wine, it should be one part of helping exisiting wine drinkers to step out of their comfort zone, perhaps trade up somewhat and making the process enjoyable. It’s certainly not the only thing and I don’t think this is about what order things are in (first and second steps). Years ago educators were always amongst the first to beg producers to include informative back labels – I know that’s old hat now, and seriously hope that young marketeers ;) find new ways to refresh the offering.

        • http://www.catavino.net Ryan Opaz

          Educators have a role, and an important one. But the message does not need to be educate first. That’s all I’m saying. We need educators, or at least some people and situations do, but not everyone needs to be educated.

  • elisabetta tosi

    “The best return on investment for the wine business is NOT to “educate”
    wine drinkers about the features of the wines, but to make wine in
    general a more relevant part of their lives”.
    Great! This is the key! Thank you Rob!

  • Tim Carlisle

    I think, and I may be close to where Robert Joseph is on this but I’m not certain, that educating people may sell more wine. The problem comes of course that the vast majority of people don’t want to be educated. What they want is something they can sit down with on a Saturday evening that will taste good and inebriate them to a greater or less extent dependent on their exact reason for drinking in the first place. 

    The wine industry can get it wrong in several ways. First they assume – as RJ says – that the problem is not what they are doing and selling but simply that they are not appreciated by local consumers. Educate your consumers and they will then get what you are about and you’ll sell more wine – but referring to the first paragraph – THEY DON’T CARE!

    We can also be guilty of deciding what we think customers ought to want, rather than what they actually want. 

    As an independent merchant, sure part of my job is to be able interact with those consumers for whom a tutored tasting forms an education, allows me to sell more wine and those consumers who attend these kinds of things invariably spend more money both in total and per unit – but these are a minority of customers and they are very different from the norm.

    For a business looking to build sales what they need to start by doing is working hard on consumer loyalty – it is essential to get this right before you start trying to find new customers. This may include tasting events, delivery, try before you buy, sale or return, glass loan, staff who are able to answer questions and go out of their way to help but building loyalty is the single biggest thing that a merchant (or supermarket) can do.

    Once loyalty is built and you can be confident that new customers are likely to be converted you can then go and look for new ones – this can be expensive which is why it necessarily comes second.

    But there isn’t a smoking gun that will sort this all out. Anyone who is seriously in the wine business has to be there first and foremost to make a profit – and that has to be priority. It may mean that you can’t list Pacherenc’s from your favourite fifteen producers but to try is the stuff of dreams not reality. 

    As a merchant your job is to make a profit from the available sales, that means ranging to allow turnover of stock to maintain cashflow, controlling costs and chipping away. Some people can be won over, some will never be but to suggest that Education is even a major part of the business has to be wrong because in terms of market share it controls such a small proportion – even if it is largely at the top end. 

    But a lot of people who buy en primeur claret or the like don’t actually know anything about wine – except that they like good claret and are prepared to pay for it so even the argument that you can only sell good wine to the educated is null. 

    As a merchant you talk about sales of particular wines in sales meetings with retail managers who when you tell them you are going to delist something because noone is selling it often pipe up that perhaps they ought to really push it – but again this misses the point. Surely the you want to follow ‘the path of least resistance’ if you like. IE what is selling is what works – retailers should be selling what they find easy to sell AND what their customers are asking for. Which is why our four shops have totally different sales profiles. 

    If Education is all about facts then the old adage that “Facts tell but stories sell” is very true. Any customer is more likely to buy a wine based on a story not because you tell them what the soil is like – they just don’t care but tell them a story about how the winemakers five year old little girl has her own tray to foot tread the grapes and draws a picture for the label etc etc and they buy into it. 

    If we want to sell more wine then, perhaps the only way is to expose more people to wine and to the sorts of wine they can understand.

  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com/ awaldstein

    Nice one Robert.

    I don’t agree with all of your conclusions but applaud the direction and the intent.

    The idea of a prerequisite for enjoyment is counterintuitive.

    Drinking wine is about fun and taste and people with a dose of alcohol to fuel it. A natural need for language and information springs from this.

    This is not about learning math to succeed in life. This is about pursuing what interests us and feeding the ‘geek inside’ that all of us have about something we are passionate about.

    If that is wine education for the mass market. Great. If not it needs to rethought.

  • Bobby C

    Agreed . . . generally speaking, ”Education” is regularly targeted by wine marketers for why some wines don’t sell at an expected rate . . . “if only consumers ‘understood’ this wine it would really sell”.  Your Nike/Reebok reference is a good one . . . pretty unlikely that any snack or soda producers believe that “if only people knew more about our chips and cola they’d consume so much more!”
    I’ve always felt that the wine industry would benefit from “exposure” and “awareness” to wine . . . getting wine in front of more poeple in casual settings is the key.  If wine were more available, such as being served in fast food restaurants or sporting events, “average consumers” would accept it as an alternative to more “conventional” beverages.

    • http://www.winestoppersandcharms.com ben ward

      I think we are missing a big piece to this story.  If more people were educated and more people knew about wine, it would take away the mystique of wine.  We all love our wines, however if wine was available like coke or coffee, I think we would all agree we would sure drink less of it.  My personal thought is I can’t wait to have that glass of wine with dinner! If I could have it with a mcdonalds big mac, I wouldn’t really appreciate it!

  • http://twitter.com/carohenry caroline henry

    Interesting article and comments indeed…  Maybe I am playing devil’s advocate here, but for me there is always a learning curve/eduction attached to enjoyment… Let me compare wine to art – I can enjoy a picture, painting or play but for a brief moment, however I only started to really appreciate and enjoy art after having learned more about it. Now when I see a picture or a play – the fact that I understand the general context, or artist’s interpretation enhances, for me at least, the experience, and this in turn ads to my enjoyment. I have similar feelings about wine – I feel my enjoyment has definitely increased by learning more and more about wine – by this I mean knowledge gained through textbooks as well as living and working amongst the vines:-) I feel that as people we all have different needs, and some of us have really inquisitive minds, and for those people wine eduction, as well as art eduction, has a place… Do agree with your closing statement that wine should be fun:-)

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      I differentiate between the two. 

      First, you and I are unusual, that is why we do what we do. We have made the commitment to wine knowledge, but just because we did, it doesn’t mean that others should. 
      Second, there is a lot of enjoyment to be got from wine, and art, even without studying, but we CAN go deeper if we want to. That is the same for ALL obsessions – I’m pretty sure that train spotters, bird watchers, coin collectors and more would all agree. You say you have an inquisitive mind, and I don’t disagree, but you have chosen to pretty much focus on wine, unless you know stuff about trains, birds or coins that I am unaware of. It is a choice others do not have to make, but we often treat them like they should.Lastly, fun is a major part, but mostly it needs to be relevant, otherwise we will continue to be a fringe group :)

  • http://twitter.com/TheChrisBryant Chris Bryant

    Cool post Robert. I think that there is an important distinction to be made between education and information. There are many consumers who are happy for a bit of info, perhaps on an progressive and intelligently written back label or on a website (not all the technical gumpf; just something to add to their experience). But they don’t want to be ‘educated’. It’s important for the wine producers and industry to recognise that. The information should be available if they want it, but not forced upon them.

    It’s frustrating when you go to a wine show or event and the standard lines that you get from those pouring the wine involve all the production info. Talking about ballings and barrels and lees and malolactic fermentation surely doesn’t make the average consumer feel closer to the product. It makes them feel like they need to be ‘wine educated’ before they can engage with the product on any higher level than they’re used to. 

  • http://twitter.com/pieterrosenthal Pieter Rosenthal

    Food for thought. If you simply ask the question do you need a wine-education to drink and enjoy wine then the answer is clearly no. But we should distinguish between the formal type that comes with late night study and exams and the informal ‘education’ that consumers choose (the operative word) to attend by going to a wine tasting in a local shop, restaurant or otherwise organised event. Consumers in the latter category may be quite happy in what you mark out as group A “the hearts” and the tasting / event for them is a fun couple of hours spent tasting a few wines. In my view that is the type we need more of as it makes it a social event, more about the sharing of the wine and the occasion, rather than the knowledge. Perhaps that way wine will make it into the pub quiz after all.

  • Ed

    Good job! I’ve been saying this for 30 years in wine classes and hopefully it got through to a few. Blogs like this will help.

  • http://vitorscape.tumblr.com/ Vitor Lima

    Great Post.
    I believe that wine should be uncomplicated and enjoyable for those who buy it. It’s hard to memorize every small appellation in France before knowing where that wine came from.
    The true is that most of the times nobody care for it.
    I think this job of demystifying wines belong to sommeliers and wine specialists. Their job is to deliver to the consumer a wine that fits the occasion and his taste. If the consumer likes they will buy more, and if they don’t they will loose trust in the brand, in the store and in the professional that recommended that wine.
    Wine Education in my opinion is mandatory for wine professionals, but for consumers most of the times is confusing as Robert described in the post and that doesn’t mean that buying wine will be easier or less stressful.
    First time I see this kind of discussion, very nice topic to approach, totally agree with the article.

  • John

    If retailers would provide more accurate descriptions of what a wine really tastes like (wineries to date have proven incapable of this) ala Publix furtive efforts on their price markers on shelf and Best Cellars flavor zones then consumers would not continue to play ‘wine flavor Russian Roulette” when they buy wine. You can self identify your own preference’s at http://www.yumyuk.com. In the meantime learning more about terroir, barrel aged,  and the family history of wineries does not help the 99% of wine consumers find a wine they will enjoy.

  • Ken Payton

    The barbarians are at the gate…

  • http://vinosambiz.blogspot.com Fabio (Vinos Ambiz)

    Thanks for the excellent post, and comments! I’ve been thinking all day about it!
    A lot of the things mentioned seem intuitively correct to me, eg, the fact that most wine-drinkers dont want to be educated, and don’t really care about the ins and outs of a wine. As long as it tastes nice and has alcohol, it’ll do the job for them! And I can see that’s there’s a growing market for wine-lovers in eno-tourism, tasting courses, etc, ie a minority of people who DO want to be educated a bit.
    What I don’t understand is why the idea persists in the wine trade/industry that ALL customers need to be educated!
    Could this education thing be part of the Anglo-Saxon / Latin cultural and commercial divide? Commercially, wine in Anglo-Saxon and Northen countries in general is very expensive. In Mediterranean countries, traditional wine-producers and drinkers, wine of all qualities is ubiquitous, casual and cheap. Culturally and historically, A-S and N countries have been beer-drinkers, and only the ruling elite ever used to drink wine, and the habit only became more widespread relatively recently!
     I don’t know if this has got anything to do with education, but those were my thoughts on the metro this evening, for what they’re worth!!

  • http://www.rebeccagibb.com Rebecca Gibb

    Hi Robert, funnily enough I tackled the very same issue in the MW last week. The question was: ‘Some say the majority of wine consumers enjoy wine without understanding it. How will this shape the future of the international wine trade?’ I have to say it doesn’t matter too much whether they understand it or not – as long as they are choosing it over beers or spirits as their drink of choice, who cares? 

    Many consumers eat pasta but can’t make it; Coca Cola continues to dominate the world but no one really questions what’s in it (except for holier-than-thou dieticians).

    Education is great but we cannot shove it down consumers’ throats. They have a life to lead, and quite frankly, wine is a luxury that people enjoy and most don’t want to think about too much. 

    Keep it up Rob

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      Great to hear we are tackling MW level material here. Thanks for the support and best wishes for exam success!

  • http://twitter.com/spiltwine Louis Villard

    Great conversation piece Rob.

  • Alexandra Corvo

    Hello, I am Alexandra Corvo, I am the owner of the only independent and all-professional wine school in Brazil (by all professional I mean all the staff have long experience in wine service or making – contrary of what is common in Brazil where mostly amateurs teach wine to other amateurs). I have both professonal and amateurs courses. Being a school owner, of course I think wine education for amateurs is very important. But I do not think is people from the “wine business” that should be teaching. When I say wine business, I am talking about stores, producers and people interested in selling more. I think the wine education is about teaching the consumer about their own possibilites of choosing wine by understanding better their own taste, thus, being more able to choose better what they like. In my opinion, the only way to do that is to show them that they have  nose and mouth that are able to feel things in wine that can amplify their pleasure while they are tasting. That learned, they can talk about it with friends, strengthening not only their relation with other human beings that enjoy that same pleasure, but also their relation with wine. And, to do that, well, we have to teach, they have to go to courses or school. In my school I developed a method of tasing that, besides tasting blind, they learn to taste other things and discover that juices, fruits, other drinks also can be tasted and fun to talk about. I think there is too much “pressure” on wine, as if it’s the only thing that has aromas  and can be tasted. When we get to know how our nose and palate works, we have more fun with wine, food, people and life in general. What I teach is that enjoying wine is actually more than enjoying wine. It means enjoying and incorporating a whole different lifestyle. It is way of living, thinking, seeing (and smelling) life that simply makes it more fun. It is not about being an expert or the typical eno-paininthebutt. Again, it is about diggin’it.

  • Krisztina Waliczky

    Dear Robert,it’s very fashionable today to “educate” consumers, even if it’s about wine or insurance or something else. I really think it’s more a Marketing trend then a good investment in the future….Consumers are as they are, and they go to wine courses when they are really curious about the origin of a special kind of wine, its way from the vineyard to the bottle, etc., or maybe, if they want to feel the luxury of being expert in that special field of high gastronomy.Maybe it has more in common with the Blue Ocean Strategy, creating a special market and being the leader on it, hoping that Gourmet people are more motivated to spend money to purchase a bottle of good wine, but as I see, it meens that somebody has to define the criterion of Gourmet and good wine, too.But everiday people don’t need wine education when they are thirsty, I think. Rather they need a bottle of “something” that tastes good and fits the food they are eating. 
    In my opinion, it’s very boring how everybody wants to “educate” consumers, because they are not children. Sometimes they are more conscious of what they want, but sometimes they just want to enjoy life as it is. With a glass of wine in their hands…or without. But it is not least a question of education.

  • winelush

    Okaaaay!  I promised a comment and here it comes.  I think you’ve taken Wine Education for Consumers too literally.  It’s not so black and white.  When industry professionals talk about consumers need more education it’s not they need to memorize regions and grapes, they just need to know there are alternatives to mass marketed wine. 

    For example, high end Spanish Tempranillo from Ribera and Toro is a good alternative to very expensive left bank Bordeaux and cult California.  A little different yes, but a good alternative.  Don’t drink Santa flipping Margarita Pinot Grigio, drink Alsace Pinot Gris.  That’s wine education. 

    Illuminating a customer what choices they have for their own palate.  That’s wine education.

    Getting someone to put down the overpriced bulk wine on advertisements everywhere for an unknown wine they are going to take a chance on.  That’s wine education.

    Having a customer understand the price points for the type of wine they like to drink so they are able to recognize value.  That’s wine education.

    All these things can be learned on the go, they don’t need a class for this. 

    Maybe 20 years ago before the onslaught of the computer- internet age was upon us, people had to learn, but there was not that many international wine producers 20 years ago.  There wasn’t a lot to learn, not like now, many regions stayed, well regional, in the US, we drank French, Italian & California.  Anything else on the shelf was a rarity & a curiosity, not something you would buy cases of, but a conversation starter at your dinner party.  

    Now 25 ha properties sell in 3 dozen countries and are headed by an investment firm where the larger the profit percentage, the most shares they can sell on the NYSE.  It’s totally different now.  We got wikipedia and iphones.  We can look stuff up without any assistance from a sales person if we like.

    I don’t know about the UK, but in the US, other than amateur wine appreciation drinking courses, all other certification courses, CSW, WSET, CMS, ISG, etc, 90% taking these advanced lessons in education are industry.  I’ve only seen about 10% who are civilians.  And most of them are interested in it as a hobby just as you would take courses in anything to advance your knowledge of a subject.

    I don’t know any industry person who expects civilians to go through everything you detailed.  I do expect anyone in the industry in management, beverage service, of course sommelier or high end wait staff to take multiple advanced courses and certifications in wine, liquors, beer and service.

    In Houston’s service industry, that’s our snob and worth factor, we do combat with our certifications against each other.  We quote producers in casual conversation, when the latest DOCG names were put out last month, everyone was abuzz, mostly with “would they stop it, I can’t memorize all this crap, the Spanish Pagos are already making me nuts”  We don’t expect or want to have those conversations with the general wine drinking public. 

    I like having industry chat over say a Alsace Sylvaner, knowing this gorgeous wine will never be ruined by mass marketing so I’m not concerned about education for consumers, the more wine they drink, the more they learn, if they want to, if they don’t, who cares, I personally am not the type of person to put something my mouth I don’t know the history or background of, but that might well be another story. 

  • Bampwine

    I have to say that I don’t particularly like the term education when applied to wine …….which will probably get me into trouble as I am Chairman of the Association of Wine Educators!  To my mind, there are two main distinctions.  Where in my experience the wine drinking public DO want education is in the matter you refer to above, that of avoiding making a fool of themselves – so, in areas such as wine service, storage, ideas on matching wine with food, ordering wine in Restaurants, etc.  However, in terms of the wines themselves, I am not sure education is the right word – I wish we all did more to inspire, enthuse and engage.  Especially in the supermarket wine aisle which I find mind-numbingly boring.

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      Thanks Richard for the honest comment (and I do hope you don’t get into trouble as what you say shows that the AWE are open to the discussion). Let’s get enthusing!

  • Andrea@Italyabroad.com

    Rob,

    long time….
    nice post, however, I interpret “wine education” in a different way.
    Education for me does not mean tell consumers all different features of a
    bottle of wine, will be annoying them unless they ask  for it, but simply rid off of all bad wine
    around. Wine is self educating, after having drunk a good wine, we can’t go
    back to a bad one, our palate will prohibit us, so the solution is to ensure
    that every consumer experiences at least one good bottle of wine at a
    reasonable price and the job is done, we have educated them without investing
    too much and letting the wine do the work for us. Happy to expand further.

    Andrea
    http://www.italyabroad.com/italian-wine-blog