Let’s See What They Have: What Consumers Look for in a Restaurant Wine List

Abstract

While menu items and menu design have been explored in the food-service sector, there is still a lack of information about the role played by product elements in a wine list from a consumer’s perspective. This study aims to fill this gap using a novel research method, choice modeling with latent class analysis for segmentation, which has not been used previously in menu research. The goal is to provide a better understanding of the way consumers choose wine in an on-premises setting and to identify possible segments based on how consumers respond to different types of information provided on the menu. The study was conducted in Australia, using an online representative panel of 1,258 respondents in May 2009, in a market similar to the United States with regard to on-premises wine consumption. The main results show that grape varietals are key choice drivers, followed by the awards obtained by a wine and its price. Less important but about equal in weight were a wine’s region of origin and tasting notes (i.e., a description of its sensory characteristics). The least important choice factor is food-matching suggestions. A segmentation analysis revealed the existence of seven segments, which are distinctive with regard to wine preferences based on the attributes analyzed in this study. However, as much as these groups diverge in the way they behave, they do not differ on the basis of their sociodemographic and attitudinal characteristics, confirming similar findings of other studies.

Keywords: on-premises wine sales, wine list, discrete choice analysis