Bainbridge, PA – It’s been almost two months since Nissley Vineyards hosted the nation’s first blind tasting study on July 20, 2019, comparing wine in a can and wine in a bottle led by Dr. Robert Williams, Jr. and his team from WICresearch.com. On August 8th, the research team unveiled their findings at the Wines & Vines Packaging Conference.
There is no denying the growth of the wine-in-a-can market which Dr. Robert L. Williams, Jr, Dr. Helena A. Williams, and Matthew J. Bauman attributes to factors such as convenience, occaision expansion, sustainability, cost savings, quality, portion control, and branding.
Based on a 2018 survey, the research team found that a majority (43%) of consumers prefer the 250ml can size but only 50% of wine-in-a-can producers offer it in 4-packs. Survey respondents ranked ‘taste’ as the most important attribute over value, convenience, and recyclability. Majority of respondents reported consuming the most wine-in-a-can when they were chilling/hanging out, at a party, or at the beach.
2019 Blind Taste Test
The results combine data collected from two locations. One at a local Pennsylvania University and at Nissley Vineyards. There were a total of 86 random participants, aged 21-74. They were served four kinds of wine, from the same winery, into two different cups. Without the participants being able to tell, one cup was wine from a bottle and the other from a can. Wines included a dry chardonnay, a dry riesling, a dry rosé, and a sparkling sweet moscato. Crackers and water were provided to each participant.
When asked “Have you tried wine-in-a-can before,” the responses were split exactly half. 50% replied Yes, 50% replied No.
Interestingly, while there were a greater number of female respondents, a higher percentage of Male tasters (63.6%) had tried wine-in-a-can, while out of all the Female tasters, only 48.3% had tried it.
A total of 57% self-identified as having higher subjective wine knowledge than their peers.
For the question “I prefer Wine A, Wine B, No Difference,” Preliminary conclusions suggest that tasters reported NO strong preferences between the identical wine packaged in a Can vs packaged in a Bottle.
Overall, 48.5% preferred Bottle, while 51.1% preferred Can or indicated they found no difference.
While all four wines showed greater Can preferences or No Difference, Riesling and Rosé showed greatest difference in preference for wine in a Can vs. Bottle.
What do you think of these results? Do they surprise you? Let us know!