Lockdown brought a lot of strange new restrictions on British life, and many of the public turned to drinking at home as a way to spend time or help ease the stress of the situation. House of Townend, a wine merchant based in Hull, found that orders begin surging when lockdown began – and has shared their data to show us which wine habits Britain took to during the pandemic.
But it’s not just one retailer reporting an influx of home drinking – Google itself has noted a surge in searches around buying alcohol at home.
Lockdown leads people to search Google for online alcohol shopping
‘Order alcohol online’ was searched approximately 9,650 times in February 2020. March, the beginning of lockdown, saw a huge increase of +655% to a total of 72,860 and April continued this with a +24% rise to 90,530.
More specifically for our drinking habits, it seems the UK is a big fan of wine. ‘Buy wine online’ was searched just 7,930 times in February 2020. March, when lockdown started, led to a +1,574% increase to 132,780 searches. This continued in April with 136,240 total searches – which began to fall again in May as lockdown measures relaxed.
In general, the UK has been drinking more alcohol:
- Monthly searches for ‘Red Wine’ shot from 18,100 to 27,100 and then to 31,000 from February to March to April.
- Monthly searches for ‘White Wine’ rose from 8,100 in cold February to 12,100 in March and to 18,100 by April.
- Monthly searches for ‘Rose Wine’, which tends to peak in popularity in summer, instead crawled from 14,800 to 18,100 in March. Lockdown was not enough to push the wine into popularity – but warmer weather in May sent searches skyrocketing to 40,500.
- Monthly searches for ‘Beer’ were similarly affected by lockdown – with roughly 50,000 searches in both January and February spiking to 74,000 in March and 90,500 in April.
Searches for the phrase ‘Home Delivery Wine’ grew by 500% from the 23rd of March (the official start of lockdown) till the 23rd of June. It is clear that interest in wine went to an all-time high during lockdown – but which wines were most popular?
Which wines were most sought after in lockdown?
According to Year on Year sales data from House of Townend, lockdown had a huge impact on what kinds of wine people were drinking.
In the 2019 March-June period, the most popular drinks sold by the wine merchant were Prosecco and white wines. The spring period normally brings a taste for fizzy, lighter wines. This was also reflected in 2018.
In the same period in 2020, lockdown caused a considerable shift in drinking habits. House of Townend’s top 10 wines included 6 red wines – the top products being Pinot Noir and Malbec.
Malbec, in particular, has been popular in both Google Search history and House of Townend’s sales data.
- Between March and June 2019, according to Google Trends, Malbec had an overall search interest (the percentage of searches) of 28.53%. During the same period in lockdown 2020, Malbec had an average search interest of 45.23%.
In summary, it seems that British people have been drinking more in their homes during lockdown – with our tastes changed compared to the same season last year. No longer are we searching for light, spring fizz, and instead turning to red wines for a more comforting home drinking experience.
Red wine might be the true champion of lockdown – but it seems Malbec is the real winner, with that specific grape trend more appealing to British consumers than ever before.