Stephan Pinkert, sociologist and wine lover, introduces his readers to the world of social milieus in what is now the second edition. As the title suggests, it is about the specific differences of the "wine milieus" in terms of consumption and dealing with wine.
In
his sociological foray, he is guided by the ten milieus as they have been worked out by Sinus milieu research.He describes in a very comprehensible and plausible way how, for example, members of the "established milieu" (conservative, upscale milieu) mainly drink classic wines such as Bordeaux, Burgundy or Mosel Riesling. They refrain from spontaneous purchases and prefer to buy from their favourite vintner or from mail-order or specialist shops. In contrast, the intellectual is much more flexible, reads a lot about wine, is also interested in the fringe areas of wine and tends to represent the wine connoisseur and is also willing to try out new wines. The members of the traditional working-class milieu are in a particularly bad position with regard to wine consumption. Actually, they drink beer; when they do drink wine, it tends to be the sweet wine for 2.59 euros from the supermarket.
The
reader learns a lot about the division of the population into pigeonholes, as milieu research has done for us.
The differences become clear and the seemingly arbitrary classification becomes a comprehensible system before the reader's eyes.
Unfortunately, Pinkert loses himself again and again in lengthy treatises on the quality of organic wines, on the use of barriques and wood chips in overseas wines, the alleged advantage of natural cork over other wine closures and many other topics that may be quite interesting in themselves, but hopelessly explode the structure and systematics of the book.
When he talks about Gerhard Schröder's "new centre" or discusses in detail the sense and nonsense of wine criticism, the reader suspects that Pinkert is using his book to finally get rid of a lot of things he has always wanted to say. When he then loses himself in endless lists of his personal wine favourites, it really starts to get annoying when you actually wanted to learn something about "wine milieus".
Resumee: This book would be a recommendable read about the basics of milieu research and an interesting attempt to apply it to wine consumption habits.
The intuitive knowledge that there are such and such wine drinkers is confirmed, the backgrounds well explained and theoretically substantiated. Actually a must-read for all those who do marketing in the wine segment. You should only either bring time with you or find someone beforehand who can separate the many stories about "this and that" from the really good and readable parts of the text.
Weinmilieus - Kleine Soziologie des Weintrinkens at Amazon
Stephan PinkertWeinmilieus
- Kleine Soziologie des Weintrinkens
196 pages, 24,90ISBN
: 3825872858