Women more likely to choose wine with feminine labels, study finds

A three-part experimental study led by Washington State University researchers in the US found that women were more inclined to purchase wine that had labels with feminine gender cues.  

The more strongly the participants identified with other women – a phenomenon called ‘in-group identification’ – the greater this effect was. A feminine label also influenced their expectation that they would like the wine better. 

Titled ‘The eyes have it: How do gender cues in wine labels influence U.S. women wine consumers?’, the paper has been published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Hospitality Management. 

“When you look at the market segments, women are purchasing a lot of wine. They are a large group,” said Ruiying Cai, an Assistant Professor.  

“We found that feminine cues speak to women consumers. They have more favourable attitudes toward the label and the wine itself. They were also expecting their overall sensory experience to be better and they were more likely to purchase the wine.” 

A total of 324 women were shown fictitious wines with labels designed with gendered cues. The participants showed higher intention to buy wines with a feminine label, such as a woman holding flowers, as opposed to a wine with a masculine label, such as a bulldog in a spiked collar. 

When asked about the expected sensory experience, they rated their liking of every sensory aspect higher – including the colour, taste, aroma and aftertaste. 

Expertise did not moderate purchase intention 

The participant’s level of wine expertise moderated their taste expectations but, surprisingly, not their purchase intentions. 

“Whether they were knowledgeable or less knowledgeable about wine, when they saw those feminine cues they had a higher intention to buy the wine. The gender cue influence was so strong [that] it trumped the effect of that knowledge,” said co-author Christina Chi, a Professor at the university, 

A third experiment with another set of 138 women involved a taste test – also with a surprising finding. Researchers gave bottles of the same red wine with one of the gendered labels. 

More women who tasted the feminine-labelled wine ranked it higher in fruit flavours such as red current and blueberry than those who tasted the same wine with a masculine-cued label. This was despite the fact those flavours were not dominant components in that particular wine. Women connected more mineral flavours with the masculine-labelled wine. 

However, the participants who tasted the feminine-labelled wine reported liking it less than the women who tasted the masculine-labelled wines. The authors said this could be a result of the incongruence between the expected flavour influenced by the feminine label and the actual taste of the wine sample. 

“When designing the labels, winemakers should involve more women in the process, and it’s highly advisable to pilot test the labels among consumers for gender cues,” Chi said. 

You can find out more about the research here.