Measuring the number of searches on the world’s most visited wine site, Wine-Searcher, provides a unique insight into an individual wine’s overall popularity. Following on from last week’s blog on wine searches we have aggregated two years’ worth of this data at region level, to put popularity in perspective and map fine wine market trends over time.
Above, we have taken the 50 most searched-for wines from the leading fine wine regions in France and Italy and tracked their changes in search frequency over two years. Despite natural peaks and troughs – including large spikes for Champagne during the festive season – the last six months show an acceleration in searches for wines of every region.
Several wine regions have seen searches more than double in the last two years, with Tuscany, Piedmont and Burgundy as the stand-out performers. Meanwhile, Bordeaux – the most searched-for region in real terms – has struggled to engage new audiences at the same rate as its counterparts. For more on Tuscany’s rising global clout, see our in-depth regional study, available to subscribers on the Analysis page.
To view the popularity of individual wines, simply search for your wine of choice on Wine Lister and explore the Brand score sub-criteria.
Here’s the latest instalment of our monthly series on biggest Brand gainers.
The latest Wine-Searcher search frequency data is in, allowing us to update our Brand scores with changes to each wine’s popularity (one of the two criteria contributing to the Wine Lister Brand score, the other being a wine’s presence in the world’s top restaurants).
The chart below gives us a breakdown of the five wines which improved their Wine Lister Brand score most during December:
The top five Brand gainers are not concentrated in any one country or region, with Italy, Australia, and three different French regions all represented.
As in November, Barolo is again represented. With a percentage increase of 28% in Brand score, Marengo’s Barolo Bricco Viole saw a surge in monthly online searches, increasing from an average of 103 to 342.
The second biggest gainer is Magnien’s Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru, whose average monthly searches have doubled, helping raise its overall Brand score above the Wine Lister average to 545/1000.
We’ll be back next month with an update on January’s biggest Brand changers.
We’ve updated Wine Lister scores to incorporate the latest search frequency data from Wine-Searcher. The higher the relative search frequency of a wine, the higher the popularity score and consequently the better the wine’s Brand score.
The chart below shows the impact of the new online search data on Brand scores, showing the top five biggest gainers.
The brands on the rise in November were spread between several regions, with only the Rhône boasting two in the top five. Gaining most in terms of online searches month on month was Domaines Paul Jaboulet Aîné Cornas Domaine de Saint-Pierre. This saw a recent surge in average monthly searches, from 278 average monthly searches in the three-month period up to the end of October, to 639 now. This resulted in its brand score increasing by 65 points, up to 584 /1000.
Parusso Barolo Mariondino searches also increased substantially in the same period, from 140 to 270, taking its brand score to 434 – still below the average brand strength for wines on Wine Lister.
The Wine Lister Brand score algorithm has two components: Distribution and Popularity. The former criterion measures a wine’s presence in the world’s top restaurant wine lists. The latter measures the number of searches for each wine on the world’s most visited wine website Wine-Searcher, our Popularity Partner. We look at the number of times the wine is searched for over a rolling three-month period, and compare this to search frequencies of all other wines. The higher the relative search frequency, the higher the Popularity score.
Our latest score update includes updated Wine-Searcher data for October. The chart below shows the impact of new search data on Brand scores, showing the five biggest gainers:
Rioja and the Rhône come out top. The largest gain in Brand score is for Remelluri Rioja Gran Reserva which has seen a considerable surge in user searches (322 monthly searches compared to 172 before the update), as has fellow Rioja, Viñedos Sierra Cantabria Finca El Bosque. In third and fourth place are two wines from the Rhône Valley: Domaine Yann Chave Hermitage and Domaine Font de Michelle Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Etienne Gonnet. The fifth biggest gainer in Brand terms is Californian adventurer, L’Aventure Estate Cuvée.
This week saw the launch of Louis Roederer Cristal 2009. Addressing the London audience at the Shard on Tuesday 11th October, the Champagne house’s CEO, Frédéric Rouzaud, called the launch an effort “to help lift you out of depression after Brexit”.
The wine had been released in July, before the critics had tasted the wine, offered at £1,100 per case (91.67 per bottle) by UK merchants. It is still available at this price from BI Wines & Spirits, which seems like a good deal, the cheapest of any available (see the chart below).
Scores are now in from Wine Lister’s three partner critics (Vinous, Jancis Robinson, and Bettane+Desseauve) who are unanimous in their praise of the wine. See their scores alongisde a wealth of other data and analysis below:
You can download the slide here: wine-lister-factsheet-cristal-2009
In response to user feedback, we have added a simple new piece of functionality that will help you get exactly what you need from the Wine Lister website.
The ability to search and sort by category score means you can now access Wine Lister’s uniquely rich database in a more tailored way. Whilst we have done the hard work by computing all the data that matters into a single Wine Lister score, we recognise you may want to delve deeper into its composition.
Now, on the advanced search page, you can search and sort by each of our three score categories: Quality, Brand and Economics. This empowers you to dissect the Wine Lister database to suit your specific needs or question.
For example, what are the highest quality reds in Australia with low brand recognition (Brand score below 500)?:
What’s your question for Wine Lister? https://www.wine-lister.com/search