Wine culture in Austria nowadays

According to a survey conducted by IMAS – an Austrian market research institute – 37 percent of the Austrian adult population buy wine occasionally. 36 percent are quite conservative regarding their wine buying habits and prefer to stick to wines, with which they had good experience in the past. Only 22 percent are willing to taste something new. The average Austrian wine drinker sets high value on a good price-performance ratio (70%), on trust in quality (63%), on friendly personnel (55%) and on attractive special offers (54%). Also the average Austrian wine drinker prefers to consume domestic wines.

In a podium discussion organized by the biggest Austrian wine retail company the results of this survey were discussed among a group of experts consisting of a wine journalist, a famous winemaker, the author of the survey, the president of the Austrian union of sommeliers and the CEO of the wine retail company. One outcome of the discussion was that Austrians tend to buy the name of the winemaker rather than wines –meaning that the brand names are more important than the wine itself. Austria’s wine drinkers are more and more quality-conscious.

Another important point raised during the discussion was that wine is a natural stimulant actually not needed. Therefore, Austrian wine drinkers need to be captured by emotional and background stories. The “young” winemakers – nowadays not only educated in making wine, but also in marketing it – realized this opportunity and strengthened a positive image of wine culture and brought it to a bigger target group.

Today people like to talk about wine, wine becomes a leisure activity. These are reasons, why the industry around wine grows. Nowadays, wine magazines can be sold to a broader public, success stories of winemakers are finding their way to mainstream media, wine presentations are taking place in big city halls and are sold out immediately – just to mention some effects of the commercialization of the wine culture. It is trendy to be a wine drinker.

But questions remain: Is this only an Austrian trend or are there similar observations in other countries? Is this commercialization a positive trend or could this lead to a wider distribution of alcohol abuse? What accompanying measures could be undertaken to sustain this trend, but prevent people from abuse?