Don’t whine about the wine, critique the copy

“A velvety chocolate texture and enticingly layered, yet creamy, nose, this wine abounds with focused cassis and a silky ruby finish. Lush, elegant, and nuanced. Pair with pork and shellfish.” 

Can you guess the wine? I attended the London International Wine Fair ‘LIWF’ last week (one of my other copywriting sidelines) and could have sworn I’d read this description on the tasting notes for one of the reds….or maybe I’d even written it myself?

Not so, because it was made up from a computer algorithm. Let me explain…..

The danger of computerised Tasting Notes

In an article in Slate, a behavioural economist called Coco Krume examined the wine label copy from 3,000 bottles of wine, assigned a weighting to every descriptive word used relative to whether it was for a ‘cheap’, or ‘expensive’ bottle, and plotted the results.

The analysis revealed the following:

• ‘Cheap’ words are  frequently reused; e.g. ‘short’, ‘light’, ‘flat’…etc
• ‘Expensive’ words are more unique; i.e. reviewers like to create their own vocabulary beyond the usual ‘agreeable’, ’rounded’, ‘woody’…etc

Expensive wines need impressive words

Furthermore, Krume revealed that there are three types of words more likely to be used for expensive wines:

• Darker words, such as intense, supple, velvety, and smoky
• Single flavors such as tobacco or chocolate versus fruity, good, clean, tasty, juicy for cheap wines
• Exclusive-sounding words in place of simple descriptors. For example, old, elegant, and cuvee rather than pleasing, refreshing, value,and enjoy
• Additionally, cheap wine is preferentially paired with chicken and pizza, while pricey wine goes with shellfish and pork

Hence, according to Krume, you can guess the price of the wine purely from the description.

Now, this might not go down too well amongst the wine buyers at the LIWF, or the numerous ‘experts’ present there, but if ever there was an example of the power of words to influence taste (and enjoyment), I’d say that this must be one of the best.

So, next time you’re served a disappointing bottle, don’t whine about the wine, critique the copy!