Irish wine market up 0.6%

The drinking-at-home trend among Irish consumers that’s been in the news lately has been driven by deflated consumer confidence in 2016 which saw sales of wine via the off-trade increase and which is expected to increase still further in 2017 as a result.

So believes Brian O’Connor Senior Analyst with Mintel which has just published Wine Ireland, Februay 2017.

The 163-page report looks at both NI and RoI wine markets to find that at €532 million, white wine dominated the market by value in 2016, outselling red wine by €32 million. The Rosé market is worth €32 million in total.

“Overall Irish consumers are more likely to have bought wine to drink at home compared to buying wine via on-trade channels,” the report notes.

The report compared the types of wine consumers have drunk at home over the last six months (since April 2016) to find that white wine was the most preferred type among 52% of RoI consumers. This compared to 50% for red wine, 25% for Champagne/Prosecco/Cava and 21% for Rosé.

“Between 2015 and 2016 the total value of the wine market in Ireland is estimated to have grown by 0.6% to an estimated €1.6 billion” states the report.

“Overall men show strong in-home usage of wine compared to women – particularly with red wine,” it states, “Pairings of red wines with red meat dishes may be helping boost usage among Irish men for red wines.”

Wine Ireland points out that grape type and special offers motivate consumers to buy wine.

While 50% of RoI consumers ‘generally stick to the same variety of wine’, among the attributes (excluding price) which would see consumers choose one product over another when buying wine are: type of grape (49% of RoI consumers), country of origin (44%) and ‘recommended to me by friend/family/publication’ 48%.

The report states, “56% of RoI consumers noted that they find terms used to describe the flavour of a wine (eg on its label/menu) are quite helpful, with women in particular being more receptive to them”.

It also finds that some consumers may be somewhat coming around to the idea that screwcaps are better at protecting the wine from contamination compared to cork, states the report which found that 43% of RoI consumers prefer a wine that comes with a screwcap rather than a cork closure.

The full report is available from Mintel.