Judging by what you've all been searching for, Rudolph's nose won't be the only thing that's red this Christmas.
Driven by a sense of curiosity that verges on downright nosiness, we drilled down into our databases to find out what you'd been searching for all year. Not just the usual suspects, like perennial favorites Château Mouton Rothschild and Château Latour, but what types of wine people were looking for interested us – and how much you were willing to pay for them.
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The results contained some surprises. We knew that red wines were likely to be more popular for searchers, but not to the scale of the past 12 months, when red wine searches outweighed white wine searches by a factor of 2.5.
Another surprise was which varieties were most popular. Given that five of the 10 most searched for individual wines are Cabernet-based, you'd think that Cabernet Sauvignon would be the major variety being searched, but it is Pinot Noir that emerges as the most popular individual grape, in searches classed by variety.
With almost 11 million searches for Pinot-based wines, compared to a relatively paltry 8.2m for Cabernet in the 12 months to November, this is the second year in a row that more people have searched for Pinot. In the previous 12 months, there were 9.8m Pinot searches and 6.7m Cabernet searches.
Another notable trend is the fading of Zinfandel. Despite Zinfandel producing three times as much wine last year as Syrah in California, drinkers are keener on the Rhône red grape, with searches for Syrah outstripping Zinfandel after spending the previous period virtually neck and neck. Perhaps growers in the US should consider planting more Syrah.
Whites have remained mostly static, with Chardonnay far and away the leading variety, with Sauvignon Blanc a distant second. Contrary to the sommelier brigade, there is no sign of Riesling's oft-trumpeted resurgence. In fact, despite the almost-unanimous praising of Riesling by wine writers for some years now, consumers would appear to less persuaded each year. In the 12 months to November, Riesling searches declined by more than 10 percent from the previous period, falling from 1.71m searches to 1.52m.
One thing was very clear about the way white and red wines are seen by our users – they are more likely to spend up on red wine than white. Once the grape varieties were divided up into three broad price brackets (less than $10, $10-30 and more than $30), it became abundantly clear that more people were willing to search for expensive reds, while economizing on the whites.
The vast majority of red wine searches were in the $10 and more categories, while the whites were where the bargain hunters looked for savings, with most people looking for something less than $30.
