Abstract: In China, the United States and Germany, people still prefer wines sealed with natural oak corks, but the researchers believe this will start to change, the study found.
According to data collected by Wine Intelligence, a wine research agency, in the United States, China and Germany, the use of natural cork (Natural Cork) is still the dominant method of wine closure, with 60% of consumers surveyed. Indicates that natural oak stopper is their favorite type of wine stopper.
The study was conducted in 2016-2017 and its data came from 1,000 regular wine drinkers. In countries that prefer natural corks, Chinese wine consumers are most skeptical of screw caps, with nearly a third of people in the survey saying they would not buy wine bottled with screw caps.
The authors of the study revealed that Chinese consumers’ preference for natural corks is largely attributable to the strong performance of traditional French wines in China, such as those from Bordeaux and Burgundy. “For wines from these regions, natural oak stopper has almost become a must-have attribute. Our data shows that Chinese wine consumers believe that screw stopper is only suitable for low-grade wines.” China’s The first wine consumers were exposed to the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, where the use of screw caps was difficult to accept. As a result, Chinese consumers prefer cork. Among the mid-to-high-end wine consumers surveyed, 61% prefer wines sealed with corks, while only 23% accept wines sealed with screw caps.
Decanter China also recently reported that some wine producers in the New World wine-producing countries also have a trend of changing screw stoppers to oak stoppers because of this preference in the Chinese market to meet the needs of the Chinese market. . However, Wine Wisdom predicts that this situation in China may change: “We predict that people’s impression of screw plugs will gradually change over time, especially China is now importing more and more Australia and Chile wines from these countries are traditionally bottled with screw caps.”
“For Old World wine producing countries, corks have been around for a long time, and it is impossible to change overnight. But the success of Australia and New Zealand shows us that people’s impression of screw stoppers can be changed. It just takes time and effort to change, and a real messenger to lead the reform.”
According to the analysis of “Wine Intelligence”, people’s preference for wine corks actually depends on the frequency of a certain wine cork. In Australia, an entire generation of wine consumers has been exposed to wine bottled with screw caps since birth, so they are also more receptive to screw caps. Similarly, screw plugs are very popular in the UK, with 40% of respondents saying they prefer screw plugs, a figure that has not changed since 2014.
Wine Wisdom also investigated the global acceptance of Synthetic Cork. Compared with the two wine stoppers mentioned above, people’s preference for or rejection of synthetic stoppers is less obvious, with an average of 60% of respondents being neutral. The United States and China are the only countries that favor synthetic plugs. Among the countries surveyed, China is the only country that is more accepting of synthetic plugs than screw plugs.
Post time: Aug-05-2022