This is the second of my Canadian Wine Trends 2021 articles. Today I will cover our interest in red, white, sparkling and ice wine using Google Trends information. As I mentioned in my first article, Wikipedia describes Google Trends as “…a website by Google that analyzes the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages. The website uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time.” Google Trends does not give you the absolute number of say queries for Red Wine in Ontario, but if it is the most across the country, it is given a value of 100. Then all the other provinces are scaled by their volume. For example, if BC was 87 that would mean that BC people queried 87% of the volume of Ontarians for Red Wine. It does not show if Canadians actually bought a bottle of red wine, but does give us an idea of what we are interested in drinking.
The line graphs below show our interest across 2021 by Province for each wine style. Plus there is a bar chart and coloured maps that show which Province had the most queries about a grape variety and then the scaling of 3-4 other provinces with their level of interest. The shapes of the line graphs are interesting as well. Was there an overall upward slope (interest) or downward slope (disinterest) in a style over the year? Was there a peak at a certain time of the year? Let’s find out.
Red, White, Rosé, Sparkling, and Ice Wine Interest
You can right-click on the graphic below and open it up in a new tab if you want to see the graphs at full resolution.
Red Wine
Overall I would say that red wine has the strongest interest to Canadians across all provinces. British Columbia lead with the most queries in 2021 followed by Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Manitoba. I find it interesting to see that Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan had a higher level of interest than Ontario, considering the differences in population. BC does produce red wines so I am not surprised that we ranked at the top. I don’t know though if the interest is in Canadian wines only, or if the majority of queries are for red wines from around the world. This same statement holds true for all the other wine categories, except for maybe ice wine.
Quebec did not show up in the top five provinces querying for red wine. I don’t know why, but as I guessed in my previous article, perhaps Quebecers know which red wines they like and stick to those wines. No need to research other red wines.
Viewing the line graph, there is a constant level of interest in red wine, with a peak of about double the monthly average happening in December, which is when we celebrate our Christmas or other holidays.
White Wine
White wine has a slightly different line graph compared to red wine. It has a downward trend from Jan 2021 till Nov 2021 and then peaked for December, again for holiday consumption. BC and Nova Scotia swapped places for the highest number of queries for white wine compared to red wine, and now you have New Brunswick showing up closely in third spot followed by Ontario and Alberta. Quebec again does not show up in the top five provinces querying about white wine, and again my hypothesis is that they know which white wines they like and they stick to those wines. One alternate explanation could be that Quebecers are more interested in beer or cocktails and enjoyed them more in 2021. I should make a beer and a cocktail graph for another article to test that explanation.
Rosé Wine
Rosé wine has been a hot category around the world for several years now. For Canada 2021 showed a great volume of interest in rosé wines from Spring till late August, and then a wide peak in December. The biggest peak though was in the summer with the December peak being 25% less. So Canadians appear to enjoy drinking rosé wines when we have nicer weather and then when we are celebrating our Christmas and other holidays in December.
BC is the province with the largest number of queries for rosé wine followed by Manitoba and Ontario. In BC we do produce and sell a significant amount of rosé wine. The BC Liquor Distribution Branch “Liquor Market Review – Q2 September 2021” for Spring (Q1) and Summer (Q2) quarters show sales of $13 million each quarter. This is 2-3 times the volume compared to BC sparkling wine sales and about 1/5 the amount of BC white wine sales. From previous research I had done on BC rosé wines I determined:
There is a wide variety of grapes used to make these wines, but the predominant grape is Pinot Noir. The other red grapes used to make these wines from larger to smaller volume are Merlot, Gamay Noir, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Malbec, Pinot Meunier, Zweigelt, Rotberger, Blaufrankisch, Marquette, Petit Verdot, Mourvedre, Grenache, Sangiovese, and Pinotage. The grapes from Merlot to Syrah are the second largest group. All other red grapes are not as commonly used. We also have white grapes used in the production of some rosé wines. Chardonnay is the primary blending grape, followed by lesser amounts of Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, and the least amounts of Riesling, Pinot Blanc, and Viognier. (BC Rosé Wines Continue to Please)
Sparkling Wine
I did not do this for any of the categories of wine, but I thought it would be useful to compare Canadian interest in sparkling wine overall against Champagne, so I put together two queries using Google Trends.
There is across Canada, interest in sparkling wine, and surprisingly I have Yukon and NWT showing up with queries for Champagne. In no other charts that I’ve produced, do I see Yukon or the NWT show up. BC tops the list of queries for sparkling wine in general, while Quebec tops the list for queries about Champagne followed by Yukon. The graphs show a general consistent query for Champagne, while for sparkling wine seems to peak over the summer months. Both sparkling wine and Champagne wine graphs peak in December. Manitobans also look like they enjoy sparkling wine a fair amount, with their number of queries being between BC and Ontario, both provinces with more population. Buying sparkling wine or champagne looks to be a good choice for a gift or to take to a party in Canada.
Ice Wine
Ice wine is a specialty product. You don’t typically drink it on a daily basis. It is usually served after dinner as a part of dessert. And it is often given as a gift to others. The line graph shows more interest in the winter months and then tapers to its lowest interest in the summer. December has the highest peak of interest for ice wine. I do not know the statistics for ice wine production, but I do know that Ontario produces Vidal ice wine and that the Vidal grape, at least from 2019 statistics, had the largest volume production (21,192 tonnes), about twice that of the next white grape, J. Riesling (10,688 tonnes). In BC, Riesling is the fourth largest white grape grown while Vidal ranks at the fifteenth place. With the larger production of ice wine and larger population base, I can see why Ontario would show as the top province for queries about ice wine followed by BC. All the other provinces that I see listed have about half the interest of Ontario. If you need to buy a gift for someone in Ontario, you may want to purchase a bottle of ice wine.
I hope you enjoyed and were enlightened by the information gleaned from Google Trends about Canadian interest in red, white, sparkling, rose, and ice wine. If you have any comments about these wines in Canada, or from your province in particular, please post it below. Cheers.