The Importance of Wine Label Information

Abstract

Some wine marketing studies make reference to the importance of wine labels and the information they contain. Others suggests that the information content of wine labels be grouped under seven information positioning statements: namely, parentage, nonpareil, manufacture, attributes, endorsements, end user and end use. Nested within some of these statements is other information commonly associated with wine lables. There is a dearth of research that examines the importance of these seven statements or their expanded state. A questionnaire, exploring the importance of an expanded list of information elements and the importance of front and back labels, was constructed. As these questions formed part of a larger research endeavour, eight versions and two wine types were presented in a mail survey to 1.144 participants. The survey sample was drawn from a national wine mailing list (n=640). plus staff (n=304) and students (n=200) of an academic institution. No follow‐up activity was undertaken and a 28% response rate was achieved. A range of behavioural and demographic information was collected. Using a 7‐point scale, respondents were asked to indicate how important 14 pieces of information were to them in deciding on which wine to buy. Varied and significant levels of importance exist for some elements of wine label information. For example, front labels were found to be more important than back labels, and this is supported by significant differences amongst some background information. The expansion of parentage into its component parts shows wine company and brand name to be more important than history of wine maker or history of wine region. The results of this research challenge a number of existing findings and beliefs on the importance of various elements of wine label information.