THE VALUE OF ZERO: Expanding the Market Beyond Wine’s Super Core

In the world of Sherlock Holmes, the biggest clue of all can be the dog that didn’t bark. Indeed, the missing clue to greater sales just might be asking the right question about what isn’t happening.

Take the Wine Market Council’s latest offering: “Snapshot Report: Super Core Wine Drinkers.” This peek at the group’s consumer tracking study tells us that the “Super Core” — those who drink wine more than once a week — comprise just 10.5 percent of drinking age Americans but still manage to consume 82 percent of all wine sold in the United States.

As the chart, above, shows 5.2 percent of the population known as “other core” drinks wine once a week and consumes 9 percent of the wine.

Finally, “marginal wine drinkers” (not defined in the snapshot) who comprise 15.2 percent of all adult drinkers, consume 9 percent of wine.

(Note: the original article posted made an error and reversed the numbers in the marginal drinker percentages. This was spotted by an eagle-eyed reader on April 30, and the correction made.)

Add it all up and you see that just under 31 percent of all Americans over the age of 21 drink wine.

Look at it another way: 69 percent of Americans do not drink wine.

Also in this article:

• MOVING BEYOND THE SUPER CORE
• THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK
• CAPITALIZE ON THE ZERO; SELL MORE WINE
• RE-ORIENT RESOURCES FOR THE GREATEST IMPACT

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