Decanter World Wine AwardsConsumers pay more for tongue-twisting wines
- Wednesday 22 February 2012
In a study by Brock University professor, Dr Antonia Mantonakis, it found English-speaking wine consumers were more likely to buy wine from a winery with a difficult-to-pronounce name.
Participants also rated wine more highly in a blind tasting, and were prepared to pay more money for the same wine, if it had a name that was difficult to say in English.
Dr Mantonakis said: ''Wines associated with more difficult-to-pronounce names are associated with higher ratings.
'Things that are difficult to pronounce are unfamiliar because they are usually rare,' she added.
'Perception of tastes are different if they are associated with a more disfluent winery name and that result is especially pronounced for high wine-knowledge participants.'
Mantonakis admitted the laboratory findings might not be reflected in wine purchases. 'Whether these results would replicate in a more natural setting is something that we don't know.'
Have your say!
Kevin Beck
March 08 19:44
From personal experience in wine sales, consumers will NOT buy wines with names that look difficult to pronounce, whether it be the wine or the type. I usually had better success with Italian wines than French wines for exactly that reason. And if the person conducting this study is ready to say that Basque wines sell better than Australian wines or American wines, then I will say he's crazy. And when Greek wines start to outsell New Zealand wines, then that would be apocalyptic.
Kris
February 24 15:58
It's pronounced Chakoli, which isn't any sort of tongue-twister!
Tim Carlsle
February 24 15:43
Rating wines more highly in a blind tasting - surely that's about taste not names - so clearly the study is flawed in (perhaps) picking better wines with hard to pronounce names.
Consumer are also definitely LESS likely to buy something that they can't pronounce. There is good evidence for this (I can't lay my hands on the exact research but it is a fact). However they MAY be prepared to pay more for a hard to say name.
Bernie Kitts
February 24 13:15
I only buy wines with animals on the labels, the rarer the animal the more I'll pay.