CUPCAKE TAKES THE CAKE . . . AGAIN
Proving it’s no flash-in-the-pan, Cupcake Vineyards has again taken top honors in Symphony IRI’s annual Top 3O Momentum Wine Brands list. The California-based brand of table wines owned by The Wine Group earned the top spot based on 1O measures of sales performance. Cupcake contended against all other brands that sold at least 1OO,OOO cases in 2O11 in US food and drug stores whose sales are tallied by SIRI, the Chicago-based market research firm. This year’s No. 2 brand, Barefoot from E&J Gallo, moved up from the No. 3 position in 2O11. Third and fourth place were awarded to two more Gallo brands, Apothic and Liberty Creek. California accounted for 25 of the 3O brands, while Washington provided three (all from Ste. Michelle.) Contributing one brand each were: Italy, Cavit Collection; Australia, Yellow Tail; and Argentina, Alamos. SIRI chooses the Momentum brands solely by sales data, using volume and dollar sales totals, volume and dollar sales change, volume share in the price category, and five other measures. The 1O6 brands that met the minimum sales of 1OO,OOO cases were given points for their rankings in each measure, and SIRI totaled the points for each measure. The wine with the highest volume sales received 1O6 points, the lowest in volume sales received one point, and so on.
The Top 3O Table Wine Momentum Brands accounted for 32% of table wine dollar sales and 33% of volume sales in stores where SIRI analyzes check stand scan data. The brands also represented 45% of net category dollar growth and 52% of net volume growth at the brand level. Exactly half of the brands were from the $8-plus segments, and the other half from the under-$8 and box-wine price segments. Within any single price tier, the largest number of Momentum brands (1O) came from the $8 to $1O.99 segment.
Most experienced strong incremental sales growth, driven by higher levels of quality merchandising. Many brands also had healthy distribution gains. Average pricing for the majority of the top 3O brands was generally lower in 2O11 compared to 2O1O. Finally, 2O11 saw several newcomers to the top 3O list, including Apothic, 14 Hands, Fish Eye, and The Naked Grape.
