The Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Wine Consumer Behavior in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. Region

Open Access
- Author:
- Reed, Bridget
- Graduate Program:
- Food Science
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- March 03, 2023
- Committee Members:
- John Hayes, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Helene Hopfer, Committee Member
Robert Roberts, Program Head/Chair
Sarah Kirkmeyer, Committee Member - Keywords:
- wine
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania wine
COVID-19
pandemic
COVID-19 pandemic
consumer ethnocentrism - Abstract:
- The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the largest international emergencies of the decade, leading to dramatic changes in consumer behavior. In the early stages of the pandemic, the wine industry saw an almost immediate shift towards off-premise and online purchases as at-home consumption became the preferred drinking context due to the closure of restaurants and implementation of stay-at-home orders. Early studies have shown that wine purchase and consumption increased during the spring of 2020, but a more nuanced understanding of the drivers behind these behavioral changes and their potential continuation beyond the initial stages of the pandemic is lacking. There is also still much to be understood about how wine consumption and attitudes of local wines in Pennsylvania (PA), a rapidly growing wine region, have changed because of the pandemic. Consumer changes regarding ‘local’ products are worth exploring since the financial strain brought on by the pandemic resulted in a call to support small, local businesses, including small-scale wineries in PA. To fill this knowledge gap, this research explores the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on wine consumer behavior in the mid-Atlantic U.S. region, with a focus on local wines. The first part of this research aimed to better understand pandemic induced changes in at-home wine consumption and purchase of PA wine among mid-Atlantic wine consumers. A two-wave cross-sectional survey fielded in Spring and Fall 2021 found that psychographic features such as high variety seeking and consumer ethnocentrism were significant drivers of increased wine consumption and purchase of PA wine across both timepoints, while demographic variables, such as age and gender, were found to be variable in their influences. The second part of this research aimed to explore how profiles of mid-Atlantic Riesling wine align with the context of at-home consumption. An at-home tasting experiment with untrained wine consumers from PA was first used to capture consumer perceptions and attitudes of local Riesling wines. This was followed by sensory profiling of each wine with a trained descriptive analysis panel. This research identified three, distinct consumer clusters that diverged in their liking of the wine samples based on sweetness level and aromatic profile. While the first two consumer clusters appeared to be driven by key attributes like balance, drinkability, and complexity, the third cluster appeared to be more driven by the social role of wine rather than sensorial features alone. Appropriateness for at-home consumption was highly correlated with overall wine liking, and consumers were able to envision more at-home drinking occasions for the wines they liked than the wines they did not like. This body of research contributes to the growing literature on the COVID-19 pandemic’s influence on consumer behavior and is potentially the first to explore wine consumer changes in the mid-Atlantic U.S. region.