What percentage of the market actually buys on points?

Not simply because I am (quite vocally) not a fan of the points system, but for another reason altogether, I was doing a very casual survey on who buys with points. We know the points chasers of the geek crowd do, and we know that those who buy wine very infrequently and need bottles for a special occasion will do it, but from what I found, those who are in what I would assume is the true core (largest percentage of buying public) of the wine market (frequent wine drinkers, but not geeks/snobs like our crowd, as comfortable buying at the supermarket as BevMo, like to go to Napa once in a while) don’t ever buy on points, or if they do, very infrequently.

So why exactly is the points system so vehemently enforced, and all-but-required by retailers and distributors?

Has a study been performed to probe this question? Anyone know of someone who has studied the market in this way?

I would think it’s the exact opposite, that the largest percentage of the buying public do buy on points.
You can look at every wine store in America and they put points there on every wine they can… even the supermarkets do now.

Of course you can see points everywhere, but that wasn’t my question.

Ask around - how many people do you know that buy on points? Particularly the core buyers - those who enjoy wine but don’t geek out like we do.

I would say it would be high for the men and low for women. No real data points but just what I notice when I hang out at my favorite wine shop.

Since the only retail store I even hang out at is located in New Chinatown, I’d say almost all their buyers(Chinese) (who all buy a good amount of mid range-higher end wines) are buying very much on points/name recognition. It is hard to differentiate between the two at some point (no pun intended) , but high scores did lead name recognition on many of the wines.

I walked into Cost Plus this weekend and heard a few random shoppers discussing “points” on wine and which ones to choose. They weren’t together, just people giving opinions to the next and all of the discussion was geared to how many points it scored.

I agree. Men love to objectify and rank items. That’s why consumer electronics, cars, wine often get a numerical grade or a top ten list. I think it’s a testosterone thing…mine is better than yours.

Beyond this, I believe the general public does not collect and drink wine often enough to develop the confidence to choose wine based on their own palate. They need or want guidance in choosing a good bottle that will more often than not be drank within a couple of days. Numbers are easy to decipher. 95 is greater than 88, so it must be better. Of course this is a fallacy, but the general public doesn’t care. Wine geeks are a very small minority of the wine buying public. Marketing works in most aspects of buying including wine, with their shelf talkers.

I think its high. The non geek are always looking at those shelve talkers. What else could/would/should they rely on, pretty labels?
If you think of it, it makes total sense; Zagat rates restaurants, no? Everyone needs a yardstick to measure their buy/spend decisions with. My brother does it and I would say he is a bit more evolved in his palate than most casual buyers. It’s actually fun to hear him talk about his purchases and no, I don’t correct/criticize/judge. I am honored he keeps trying to buy wines I would like. It’s all fun.
Wine Geeks do it for another reason altogether: they have not evolved their palate enough to trust it. This phenomenon will always exists.

Given that 1 in 4 cases produced in the US comes from Gallo, (and those rarely have points at all), I would guess the percentage is negligible.

Low, no more than 10% to absolute max of 20%. Higher in wealthier/better educated areas, lower in less wealthy/less educated areas. Most buy cheap wine (think Charles Shaw, Gallo or lower), pretty/interesting animal labels, or what their friends/families drink (think Mouton Cadet).

Only wine geeks (not the kind found here, but the majority), “educated consumers”, and those with access to “upscale” wine stores typically seek/chase points most liquor stores have a paltry selection of wines, with few shelf talkers.

But this doesn’t mean they don’t buy on points right? If presented with the opportunity, the Gallo/Charles Shaw person will have to decide “Do I want this X point $2 wine or this X point $2 wine? I’ll go with the higher score one!”

A complex question. Here is my opinion…

First, let’s assume that what we are talking about here is Chards over $20, Pinots and Syrahs over $30 and Cabs over $45. Anything under that and I think points have almost zero effect.

Within the range of “collectible” USA wines, I think about 5 to 10% of wines sold are actual point-based purchases. But it is more nuanced than that. For many successful wineries that have scored high among their peers for several vintages, I think the CUMULATIVE buildup of points over 5 to 20 years is responsible for maybe 50% of their yearly sales now. And those points have allowed the winery to raise their prices a lot more than the marketplace average over that period. Winery X, for example, that perhaps has been scored in the mid to high 90s for one to two decades might still be able to sell out without a great score, but there is no way they could sell out at $150-500 without the history of great scores behind them. Opus still sells epic volumes of wine at a very high price because of all the great reviews in the 80s and up to the mid-90s. Mondavi and Insignia sell over 10,000 cases per year substantially because of a very long history of high scores. All three are reaching a point where they are almost “score proof.” So even if someone buys a bottle and never looked at a score, they were still influences by a score, or several.

the average wine consumer is looking at price before points… as well as they should.

packaging also plays a bigger role than you think in wine purchasing.

Define “Buy on points”. I’ll admit that if I’m faced with a number of unfamiliar choices, a rating from some publication will give me comfort absent any other data points. I don’t really care about 89 vs 90 vs 92, although when you start talking about $30+ wines I’m not buying those on a lark in the first place so it’s less relevant.

Roy, I disagree. You are presuming that a consumer not only knows the scores, and matches the producer AND the wine, but that said consumer can remember scores from vintage to vintage and create a mental average. I find that to be nearly impossible, and even if someone could, we’re talking major wine geek consumer, not 99.7% of the wine buying public. Opus One also has ridiculous marketing budgets, and longstanding relationships with all kinds of retailers, restaurants, distributors, tour companies, and hotels - they have a system in place.

I peruse the points and notes here and CT or ask the venders that I trust, my wife on the other hand buys on tasting. If she likes it, she buys it.

Salient point, Bob!

Points sell wine, repeat, spit, repeat.

You’re very generous with your assumption, Roy. Those price points are considered “ultra-premium” if I remember correctly (I could be wrong, but I doubt it), and most of the wine sold in the US is in the under $20 category (from everywhere). So right away you’re segregating a HUGE percentage of wine buyers.

Based on what I see in the retail stores that I visit for work, points (from whomever) and shelf talkers sell a ton of wine. Most folks come in and don’t know much or anything about wine aside from what marketing and their friends say. So when they see that GM Joe Schmo gave Next Overpriced Wine from Napa 96 pts, and it’s only $20, they jump all over it. And who can blame them? When you don’t know much about something like wine, you automatically believe that there’s an objective rating system to tell you the quality of a bottle. You haven’t come to the understanding that wine is a subjective experience. So a 96pt Napa must be better than a 95pt Burgundy. It’s not their fault, they just, as Pobega pointed out, don’t trust their palates yet, and are left with either the points they see on the shelf or with whatever the salesperson is pushing. And honestly, I can’t blame them. There are a million multi-colored labels staring at you from the shelf, and the “market” can get easily lost in the crush.

I should also add that many wine buyers tell you they don’t want to know how many Parker/Burghound/Whoever Points a wine has, then turn around and slap the points stickers on the shelf. That should tell you something.

Remember, most wine buyers are NOT us or even at our level of interest/geekiness. We are 1/10th of 1% of the wine-buying public. At best.
Cheers! [cheers.gif]

It’s hard to get an accurate sense of it, because it’s very uncool to admit you consider points and critical reviews in buying wine, and it’s de rigueure in wine discussions to do the rant about score whores and Parkerized pancake syrup and so forth. So, predictably, many people just don’t admit it, or substantially downplay the extent to which they do it, in discussions on bulletin boards and at wine events and gatherings.

It would be like asking people how many of them wash their hands after using the restroom – presumably 100% will say yes, and yet we all know that a high percentage of people do not, and an even higher percentage do not when nobody else is around.

I don’t know the answer to the question, but I think it depends a lot on (1) what sector of wines and buyers you are referring to (e.g. all wine consumers vs. consumers who buy premium wines vs. true wine geek/collector types), (2) what categories of wine (BDX vs. Napa vs. Burgundy vs. Australia etc.), and (3) how outlying the points are (the public responds quite a bit to outlying high scores, and to the 90 point threshhold, but not very much to the difference between 91 and 93, or 86 and 89).

If you’re talking about all wine purchased in the US, it’s a very low percentage, because most wine is cheap bulk stuff that doesn’t even get rated and wouldn’t get good scores if it were, but I would guess you’re more interested in “premium” types of wines, where the percentage is definitely higher. Particularly when you count the “halo effect” of scores over time which Roy Piper described – you may not buy a given vintage or bottle of Harlan, Kosta Browne, Pontet Canet, Carlisle, Montelena, etc. because of scores, or even knowing the score for that particular bottle, but a sustained period of high scores from critics may still have played an indirect role in your hearing of the wines, going out and trying them, forming a favorable impression of them, becoming a regular buyer, etc.

One other thing to note is that many people who don’t follow WS or Parker, including many who are the loudest about their disdain for scores, view other publications and sites that offer scores of some sort – Cellartracker, Tanzer, Pinot Report, Gilman, user reviews on eBob and WB, blogs, etc. So, there are scores and then there are scores . . .

Speaking from an auction perspective, and only from my own experience, the vast majority of fine wine buyers have historically given a lot of weight to scores on a 100 point scale (less so other rating systems). At the lower end of the fine wine crowd you find more people buying on points because they want to stretch their more limited resources further, and in contrast, very experienced tasters will give less bearing to a critic’s palate than their own trial and error conclusions. That latter group is a relatively small group of people, even within the wine geek community - but the good news is that that group is growing all the time. Gone are the days when a 100 point score from Parker instantly creates mayhem. There are still a lot of speculators and trophy hunters, but more and more people are putting the work into developing and identifying their tastes. It has taken the better part of 10 years but I am seeing a bidding population who now accepts that they are better suited to making a decision for their own tastes than any critic, no matter how well reputed.