Hello Everyone,
Well speaking from someone who is not a complete beginner but certainly nowhere near expert, but has a lot of friends who are "average wine drinkers" (and increasingly I bore them to death with my increasing wine-nerdery) I might compose a bit of a list.
And all assuming of course the label makers get within a mile of the truth!
I can sum up pretty much all the average wine drinkers I know by saying fruity white and sweeter reds for the ladies, and fruity white (still dryer than the ladies) and fat fruit forward reds for the guys.
So I think in most cases a huge flavour "wow" factor is what average wine consumers want. So jammy high alcohol shiraz and fruit bowl whites are still in high demand.
Labels that tell you what the wine "tastes" like. A lot of ppl simply have no idea what any wine should theoretically taste like, so get put off when they have say a dry chardonnay when in fact they want the typical "fruity white". I do however get sick of every chardonnay in Australia having "tropical fruit flavours of lychee and passionfruit".
Labels that give you cellaring advice. This is a bit of an annoyance to me, you go into a wine shop and see something you don't know that has survived for a lot longer than its newer vintages, say a '99 when there are 2002-2005 on the shelf. And you think "Well it might be already dead, or is it in fact better with more time on it?"
Food matching advice. And preferably more than one dish you've never heard of (Cuban braised crittergen) or some vague marketting phrase like "For outdoor living". Even someone who knows a bit about food/wine matching, it can be difficult to make a match without having had the wine before and knowing exactly what it tastes like.
Labels that give you any sort of helpful advice. Minimalist labels may be trendy, but they don't help anyone. Giving advice on temperature to serve *how long to decant* etc is always a bonus I think.
An impossibility, but wines that are truly "worth" what you pay for. So no jacking up the price $10+ just for the sake of it. There are lots of overpriced examples in the Australian market. True everywhere I guess. You charge what you can get.
More "reviews" on wine labels. So say: "Halliday calls this wine "very pleasant easy drinking" with a score of 93". A lot of ppl feed off other's impressions, which is both good and bad, but for a beginner it's a lot of help.
Most ppl who go to buy wine are completey clueless, so any usefull help and not marketting hype goes a long way.
That's all I can think of at the moment. People just want easy drinking no thinking with some helpful advice along the way. If it's Chateau Cardboard and ppl say "ooo, that's nice", it says it's a dry table red, it says to drink now don't cellar, to have it with pasta with a tomato based sauce like bolognase and some wine reviewer gave it a 9/10, that's all and more your average wine drinker wants I think.
Mat.