Forget what the pundits said. Forget what the what the experts claim to know. Instead, look at the most popular posts on the blog between November 2009 and 2010, and you'll see how consumers reacted to the recession. They traded down — a lot.
The most popular post, by a 2-1 margin in a year when more visitors came to the blog than ever before, was the 2010 Hall of Fame. This is not in itself unusual; the Hall of Fame post was the most popular in 2008 and 2009 as well. But that more people read it this year than ever before speaks volumes about the search for value during the recession.
And what says even more is the second most popular post: My 2008 entry on whether Barefoot wines are a good value or just cheap, which was the fifth most popular post in 2008 and fourth in 2009. That a 2-year-old post could improve its standing speaks to your desire to spend less money on wine but to still get something that professional and well made.
In fact, these results, taking into account their relatively small size and relatively unscientific sampling method, have convinced me that a major change has taken place in the wine business. The visitors here, courtesy of Quantcast, are exactly the kind of consumer the wine business lusts over. Almost three-quarters are college graduates (and 23 percent have post-graduate degrees); 65 percent have household incomes of more than $60,000 (and 35 percent are at $100,000 or more); and about three-quarters are 35 and older.
All of those numbers are well over the averages for the typical U.S. consumer, and Quantcast says the blog is among the top 25 percent of the 1 million blogs and Web sites it tracks. And if my readers aren't looking for $100 Napa cabernet, which the wine business says they should be looking for, then the wine business has some problems. More, after the jump:
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by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
Last week’s post about the Cristal lawsuit that forced Cristalino to change its label because of so-called confusion over the latter’s name was hugely popular, and the Wine Curmudgeon is always happy to give his visitors more of what they want. So I called my old pal, the well-known trademark and trade dress attorney, A.M.B. Chaser, to ask her what else might be on the wine name litigation front.