Organic wine producers ‘need better communication’

Organic wine producers need to communicate to the trade and consumers better, as the public is still confused about what organic wine stands for, a producer has claimed.

Virgile Joly of Domaine Virgile Joly and president for Millésime Bio, a group of organic producers for the Millésime Bio organic trade show, has told the drinks business that English consumers were less keen on organic wine than consumers in the rest of Europe because they failed to see the difference between regular and organic wines.

“We need to make the English consumers more confidence about organic wine, as they don’t understand the wines, and are afraid to spend more to have that organic certification,” he told db in an exclusive interview.

He said the UK lagged behind other countries and pointed to a recent IPSOS survey commissioned for Millésime Bio which found only 45% of British consumers were aware of organic wine, compared to 75% of French and 74% of Swedish consumers, with only 21% of having bought organic wine, compared to half of Swedish and 38% of Germans. This was despite 50% of UK consumers thinking organic products were healthier to consume, it said.

The survey also found under half of British consumers (45%) would be motivated to drink organic wine because the cultivation and production processes are eco-friendly, yet only 17% checked the labels to see if there were, compared to a third of French and 43% of Swedish consumers.

Joly said the survey pinpointed the work that needs to do to raise awareness among UK consumers. ““Producers, retailers and journalists need to give more information about organic wine to the consumers,” he said. “It was interesting to realize because as I’ve been working organically since 2000 for me, it’s natural – but I release it isn’t so evident [for everyone]. That’s still a big question people ask – what Organic wine actually is.”

“We need to make more communication on the basis of what organic is for the trade and consumer.”

“After reading the study, we decided we will need to change the information on the back of the labels as we were quite general, but we need to be focused and more simple. We need to change the label to give more information about what organic wine actually is,” he said.

Overall, the organic wine sector has grown as consumers become more interested in health, Joly noted, as well as being driven my ecological and environmental concerns, and the desire to make higher quality wines.

“Demand is up, but that is more important enough to drive the move towards organic, it’s about the drive for better quality,” he said.

Millesime Bio