And it should come as no surprise to regular visitors here that almost all of the 30 brands in the Symphony IRI Group study are cheap, that almost none of them get big scores from the Wine Magazines, and that the wines are mostly ignored by the Winestream Media.
The sixth annual study measures not necessarily the best-selling brands, but what it calls 2010's hottest performers, as measured by 10 factors like dollar and volume sales, sales growth, and market share. The top brand using those criteria was Cupcake, which replaced Menage a Trois in the No. 1 spot. The latter dropped to No. 2. E&J Gallo's Barefoot, long popular with blog readers, was third, while Rex Goliath was fourth, and Bogle, long popular with the Wine Curmudgeon, was fifth. All, of course, cost $10 or less. In all, 23 of the hot 30 cost $10.99 or less, and 14 of the 30 cost $8 or less.
Doug Goodwin, Symphony IRI vice president of client insights for beer, wine and spirits, said turnover from year to year, given the nature of the study, is not unusual. But if one thing stood out in 2010, it was that consumers were looking for value, and that producers were willing to discount on price to give consumers that value. More, after the jump: