The new Wine Intelligence report 2009 is an updated version of the UK Portraits research, published in 2005.
According to research, there are over five million more regular wine drinkers now than in 2005 - 28.1 million vs 23.5 million.
Overall spend has risen slightly and the research suggests drinkers now have an average age of 48 – compared to 46.7 in 2005.
As a group, UK wine drinkers spend £9million a year.
Researchers surveyed over 3,000 consumers throughout the past year and Wine Intelligence has now identified six segments of consumers, up from 5 in 2005: adventurous connoisseurs, generation treaters, mainstream-at-homers, risk-averse youngsters, senior sippers and kitchen casuals.
Adventurous connoisseurs and generation treaters are the highest involved groups, and tend to be the buyers of more expensive wines. In age terms, they are two sides of the same coin: generation treaters generally represent the younger (under 40) highly involved consumer; adventurous connoisseurs represent older - but still ardent - wine fans.
Mainstream-at-homers represent the supermarket-shopping, New World-drinking, middle aged, middle income bedrock of the wine market, while risk-averse youngsters tend to be under 30s who are only tentatively dipping their toes into the wine world. Senior sippers and kitchen casuals represent lower involved, low-spending and more occasional wine drinkers.
Wine Intelligence chief executive Lulie Halstead said: “At a time when businesses are having to fight for every sale, understanding your consumer has never been more vital. The new Portraits UK report is designed to help marketers, planners, innovation heads and commercial directors to
define and understand UK wine consumers of today in unprecedented detail, and can be a springboard to shaping corporate strategy for the pivotal UK wine market.”
A full Portraits UK 2009 guidebook (100+ page PowerPoint) plus full excel data tables are available for purchase from July 14th 2009 for a price of £2,225 (+VAT).