Getting customers to create a new wine blend in a single afternoon was always going to be a bit of a risk.

But, according to Morrisons, crowdsourcing can help give a novel perspective on an established way of working.

The retailer held a wine-blending masterclass with Australian wine brand Rosemount Estates in Bicester over the weekend, aiming to create a wine that will go on shelf next May. Five Morrisons shoppers plus their partners were selected from a nationwide competition, picked on the basis of their description of a great bottle of wine. I went along to see how they got on.

“What surprised us was the way in which people described the wine,” Morrisons wine buyer Gemma Cockshott told me. “It wasn’t just words describing the taste but all the emotion attached to the experience. And because of the speed of social media, people didn’t tend to deliberate too much or over-think, so you tended to get a more immediate, gut response,” she said.

This, Morrisons maintains, gives a far more accurate picture of what appeals to consumers than some of the high-falutin language often seen on wine labels.

The couples came from all over the UK and from different walks of life; some had more wine knowledge than others, while some had experience in the brewing industry, but there wasn’t a drop of pretension between them.

Quite a few admitted to only liking white wine – an unexpected twist, Morrisons wine sourcing manager Clive Donaldson admitted, considering it was a red blend that was being created.

“That really did make me work hard,” Rosemount’s chief winemaker Matt Koch agreed. However, he argued it could make for a more accessible, consumer-friendly blend. “We wanted to hear from consumers, to learn what they drank and liked – but we really had no idea what the wine would come out like.”

Following a tasting and crash course in blending, the couples got to experiment themselves, adding different proportions and combinations of six varietals that were identified only by a number. This helped do away with any preconceived ideas of ‘accepted’ combinations and made it all about the taste. Out of the five or six blends they created, each couple bottled their best blend and submitted it for judgment by Koch and the Morrisons’ team.

And as it turned out, the wines were pretty good – somewhere between a Rioja and a Cote du Rhone in style, Morrisons wine sourcing manager Clive Donaldson noted. There was also an unusual level of similarity between four out of the five blends.

If the idea was to create an interesting blend co-created and validated by consumer input, it will be fascinating to see how well the finished product goes down with consumers next Spring.

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