British consumers still think heavy bottles of wine are premium & not bad for the environment

Research carried out has shown 40% of drinkers would pay more for a wine with a heavy bottle than a lightweight bottle, despite the known environmental effects of heavy glass bottles.

Research carried out by Professor Charles Spence, an Oxford University food psychologist, has shown that consumers use visual clues to assess the quality of the wine, such as bottle weight or a label depicting a French château.

When assessing the quality of a wine by looking at the label, 34% of consumers ranked a £10 bottle carrying an image of a French château on the label as the most premium. Just 15% chose the most expensive bottle, worth £95.

Everyday drinkers tasted and rated a £6.49 bottle of supermarket wine which was preferred over a £36 bottle purchased from an independent retailer. What’s more they would have been happy to pay £9.97 for this cheap wine, but were only willing to pay £7.77 for the more premium.

The research was commissioned by Aldi, with 2000 consumers taking part in the online survey and 53 drinkers for the tasting.