Though it remains one of the most popular brand name wines in the world, Blue Nun has suffered from declining U.S. sales in recent years. Many of the American consumers who embraced the popular German liebfraumilch and other brand name wines during the 70s and early 80s have turned their attention to the rapidly expanding California varietal category.
"We lost a lot of business, not because people dislike the taste of our wine, but because there are more fashionable wine products to drink," says Ben Stone, vice president, product group director for Schieffelin & Somerset Co., the U.S. importer/distributor of Blue Nun.
One of the main problems, Stone says, is that as the California varietals (i.e., white zinfandel, chardonnay) have come into vogue, image-conscious Blue Nun drinkers no longer feel that ordering the German wine is a sure indication that they are knowledgeable about wine.
"I think a wine consumer's big fear is sounding uninformed when choosing a wine. Brands like Blue Nun have historically done well because a person can buy a bottle and know that he or she is getting a quality, well-crafted wine. But I think the branded wine business has changed, and now people will go into a liquor store or a restaurant and feel the same way about ordering a California chardonnay that 'chardonnay' has a magic ring to it, and that by ordering a Glen Ellen chardonnay they can sound like they have this wine thing pretty buttoned up," he says.
Preliminary research showed that the wine's image problem carried over into other areas. For example, some Blue Nun drinkers said that though they still enjoyed the wine themselves, they no longer felt comfortable serving it to dinner guests or giving it as a gift because they felt the label was garish and outdated. "They would rather bring some other wine that made more of a statement about them as a fashionable, knowledgeable person," Stone says.
Blue N...