Top 6 Wine Apps That Millennials Love
The following excerpt is from Sandra Taylor's new book The Business of Sustainable Wine: How to Build Brand Equity in a 21st Century Wine Industry (Board and Bench Publishing, 2017).
Millennials and GenXers are the particular favorite of marketers and the wine industry. Millennials are inclined to drink wine more than beer (though artisanal and craft beers run a very close second).
Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2000) have come of age, and they do drink wine. For millennials, wine is “in”—in movies, on TV, in every bar, restaurant, grocery store, specialty store, at every party, in every convenience store, at family gatherings.
Recently the number of young wine drinkers has been increasing. According to the Wine Market Council (WMC), 70 million people aged between 17 and 34 are growing fonder of wine. Six percent of millennials are drinking wine daily, 26 percent are drinking wine several times a week, and 19 percent drink wine once a week on average. (The Wine Market Council is a nonprofit association of grape growers, wine producers, importers, wholesalers, and retailers with the aim of providing consumer research to help support and strengthen the industry.)
This comprises the core wine-drinking segment of millennials, accounting for 51 percent of them, compared to only 37 percent five years ago. The Council’s research shows that Generation X (ages 35 to 46) was late in coming to the table for wine but is making up ground. Now 62 percent are core wine drinkers compared to only 41 percent five years ago.
Millennials are especially attracted to imports from New Zealand, Chile, South Africa, and Argentina. There are 76 million millennials in the United States, compared to 44 million GenXers (born between early 1960s and 1980) and 77 million baby boomers (those born in the years following World War II). So the millennials are the next “boom” generation, judging by their size and birthrate.
According to the Wine Market Council’s research, millennials also rely on wine reviews for information and ratings about wine, and more often the opinions of their friends rather than wine critics. So expert reviewers and wine journalists have an opportunity to present information to this segment that fulfills their information needs, including the sustainability credentials of wines reviewed. If magazines like Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate, and Wine Enthusiast—which seem to be more focused on the older, more established, male wine collector—don’t attempt to reach this demographic, we’ll likely see new “experts” emerge in publications that millennials consider more “relevant” to their lives.
Already, we see social media as influencing their wine purchases. Almost every day a new site is launched and a new smartphone app is developed and released to serve the international wine consumer online.
Social Media and Wine
Thanks to the Internet, wine lovers can experience how wine is made. They can buy wines from online shops such as The Wine Atelier, Club W, and Naked Wines. Millennials use social media to learn—the grape variety, the history of the region, and the fascinating story of the winemaker or the family that owns the winery. They also share this information with their friends and their network, which makes them very attractive to marketers and provides a great opportunity to share the sustainability credentials of a winery.
The Top Six Wine Apps Millennials Love
1. Vivino
This app enables users to snap a photo of a wine label and instantly get information about the wine—including community ratings, average pricing, and descriptions. Users can store certain wines to their library to help them remember what they’ve tasted. Users can add their own reviews and tastings notes to the wine. Similar to Trip Advisor, reviews are from a user database, not wine professionals.
2. Delectable
Similar to Vivino in that users can snap a photo of a wine label and instantly get information about the wine—including community ratings, average pricing, and descriptions. In addition to storing wines to their library to help them remember what they’ve tasted and adding reviews and tasting notes, Delectable also offers the option for users to order a certain wine directly through the app.
3. Cor.kz
Cor.kz is an app designed to help users choose bottles of wine that they’ll like. By typing in the name of the wine (or scanning the barcode), users gain access to reviews and tasting notes on CellarTracker.com. Users can keep track of wines they’ve purchased in the app as well.
4. Wine-Searcher
The app for the popular wine search engine, Wine-Searcher, allows users to search for information on over 7 million bottles of wine, beer, and spirits. Additionally, the app will connect users with over 50,000 merchants around the world that carry the wines they want and show who has the best price.
http://www.wine-searcher.com/app.lml
5. Hello Vino
This user-friendly app acts a personal wine assistant to help users pick out the perfect bottle of wine. Allowing searches by occasion, pairing with a meal, shopping
for a gift, or seasonal varietals, the app lets the user guide the selection process. They can store wines they’ve tried and scan bottles to get more information.
6. Crushed
Similar to Vivino or Delectable, Crushed is a social wine app that allows users to take photos of wine labels to gain information about the wine, add reviews, and share what they’re drinking with their friends via social networks.
These more relevant media and apps should be sure to feature information on organic, biodynamic, and sustainably produced wines in their reviews, as those are significant to this demographic.
The importance of this demographic trend was an important feature of Wine Vision 2014 in London, a premier annual event attended by CEOs and senior level decision makers in the wine business from over 20 countries. The 2014 event brought 200 attendees and included a presentation by Tyler Balliet, co-founder and president of Wine Riot, who shared insights into the millennials market and how to educate them about wine.
Wine Riot was started in 2008 by two millennials with a simple concept: create a fun, non-intimidating place where people learn about wine. They wanted to give participants the tools to find cool wine tastings, talk to experts, explore wine regions, and constantly discover new favorites. Wine Riot events are held in cities around the United States for millennials to learn tasting terminology, taste wines at winery booths, attend 20-minute seated crash courses on wine, get tattoos, listen (and dance) to the latest music hits, download a mobile app to navigate the event, rate and remember every wine, and find their favorite wines in stores.
