Dr. Jacopo Mazzeo is a freelance wine and drinks journalist and consultant.
He regularly contributes to leading trade and consumer publications including Wine Enthusiast, 

, Decanter, Meininger, Club Oenologique, Harper's, Pix Wine, and Good Beer Hunting. He consults on consumer trends and marketing strategy and offers copywriting services to drinks firms and agencies. Jacopo is a former sommelier, he judges international wine, beer, and spirits competitions, and sat twice on the board of directors of the British Guild of Beer Writers. Before he embraced full-time journalism, he studied musicology at the University of Bologna and took a PhD at the University of Southampton.

People are drawn to honesty and integrity in the post-truth era

Radical Transparency 

In 2022, Aberdeen-based Brewdog brewery overtook Carlsberg in the global beer brand value ranking, conquering the 14th position. 

Drinks International

 Originally built as a ‘post-punk, apocalyptic, motherfucker of a craft brewery’, the brand claims to be challenging conventions as well as the world’s largest beer corporations. 

The Drum

 It’s now a multinational beer behemoth with over 2,600 employees, annual sales upward of £215 million, and over 100 bars and hotels in all corners of the globe. 

Press and Journal

 Such growth is a remarkable achievement, but it’s cost the brewery the trust of its original loyal fans: economy of scale caused Brewdog to lose its authenticity and, to many, it is now just another brewing giant it once claimed to be challenging. 

Vice

That scepticism towards mass production and the commoditisation of goods is at the core of consumers’ longing for authenticity in what they eat and drink today. “The concern with authenticity is longstanding,” says consumer culture scholar Jennifer Smith Maguire. “But I think that what’s changed [recently] is the way it has been foregrounded for a much larger number of producers, products, and consumers… There’s probably an element of nostalgia… People hark back to earlier times of smaller-scale production, handcraftedness, a simple truer life.” 

Interview with Jennifer Smith Maguire conducted by the author

 People’s nostalgia for a simpler way of life – the ‘comfort of an imagined past… a reconnection with the old days’ – has been further intensified by concerns over climate change and the pandemic, while ‘nostalgic cocktails’ are one of Bacardi’s key predictions for 2023. 

Contemporary Music Review

Forbes

Authenticity is now key to a brand’s success; 88% of consumers say that what they perceive as being authentic is important when deciding what brands they like and support. 

Oberlo

Studies also argue that a brand’s authenticity increases a product’s perceived quality, illustrating how the term is tightly associated with premium beverages. 

Journal of Consumer Psychology

Foodware365

Broadly defined, authenticity describes an artefact, process, or idea that accurately reflects an original. Accuracy and fidelity however, are rarely objectively measurable. In fact, they are often highly subjective, constantly evolving alongside societal shifts. 

Innova Market Insights

 From a sense of place to a defined production process, and from the use of a specific set of ingredients to business ethics or messaging around history and heritage, how can drinks brands maximise their ‘authentic’ potential?

Of all alcoholic categories, wine is more regularly associated with ideas of authenticity. “Winemakers don’t tend to make products to deliver on something that consumers already think they want, they make products that they think are great, much more like an artist,” says Smith Maguire. “One of the reasons that consumers do buy into this is that they do offer those typical references of authenticity: small-scale, non-industrial, and handcrafted. Something that’s unique.”

 The idea of terroir – the effect of ‘soil, topography, climate, landscape characteristics, and biodiversity features’ on the finished wine, 

as defined by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine

 – has been central to define a wine’s authentic status since the creation of France’s first protected geographical indications (GI) in the 1930s. 

Areni Global

GIs are a critical form of intangible asset and intellectual property. Providing consumers with information on a product’s geographical origins can significantly increase confidence of its higher quality, and the use of protected geographical origin is migrating from wine to other drinks industries as a result. 

WIPO

 In the EU alone, the number of GIs doubled between 2015 and 2019. 

 The list features several traditional spirits and beers. With 70% of Britons agreeing its important to know where their food and drink comes from, Smith Maguire says that “[GIs

Independent

Spirits drinkers have been particularly keen to see their best drams’ geographical origin being officially recognised and regulated. Last year, the Japan Spirits and Liqueurs Makers Association finally defined what ‘authentic’ Japanese whisky is by requiring all spirits labelled as such to be made, matured, and bottled in Japan. 

The Whisky Exchange

 Similar developments involved New Zealand whisky, American single malt, and even the merely 15-year-old English whisky industry. 

Whisky Magazine

Vinepair

 Barbados – the cradle of rum – is en route to get its own GI too. 

Wine Enthusiast

While GIs can help brands tap into wine’s “established credibility as a cultural good in an increasingly global culture,” as Smith Maguire puts it, premium alcoholic beverage brands can also enhance their authentic status by shifting their focus from ubiquitous vine varieties (e.g. cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, and pinot noir) and worldwide-distributed ingredients to autochthonous grapes, hops, malts, and botanicals, authentic ambassadors of the drink’s region of origin. 

“Open a wine list at a restaurant in London, Paris, or New York and you are likely to find a brave new world of wines organised by region and sub-region,” says author Fintan Kerr. “

, Mencia, and Zweigelt are no longer just creative answers in a game of Scrabble, but bold ambassadors for their own corners of the wine world.” 

Falstaff

 launched a 12-strong range of wines made with rare grapes and in less traditional styles as a result of Britons’ growing demand for more ‘authentic’ products. 

London Wine Competition

 With consumers increasingly thirsty for terroir-driven drinks and ones that display elements of provenance, region-specific ingredients characterise some of the fastest-growing and upcoming whisky trends. The burgeoning American single malt category for instance is capitalising on North American heritage barley varieties while the young English whisky category has turned the use of locally sourced grains into its very own USP. 

Provi

Although wine drinkers are already accustomed to concepts of specific origin and provenance, wine brands can still aspire to increase their aura of authenticity by offering consumers wines made with grapes from circumscribed plots. 

Glug

 GI regulations across the globe – including Rioja, Chianti Classico, and Soave – are increasingly allowing wineries to integrate site-specific mentions as part of the wine’s denomination of origins. 

Decanter

Rioja Wine

The Drinks Business

 Featuring the name of a specific vineyard on the label is for the consumer a sign that the product is noteworthy and of a higher quality than one without it. The more specific the geographical origin is, the more unique the wine will be as a result. 

The Globe and Mail

Consumers’ understanding of brand authenticity however, transcends mere geographical origins, and extends to traceability and transparency. 

Ecommerce Fastlane

 People are increasingly keen to know how their food and drinks were produced, and are paying more attention to ingredients lists. Products that offer full traceability and transparency of where and how they were sourced for instance, can help reassure them of their sustainable credentials. 

Speciality Food Magazine

For drinks entrepreneur Mark Reynier, this shift is particularly apparent among premium spirits drinkers, who strive to get a fuller picture of the beverage’s production process, and the provenance of its ingredients. “Some are more receptive to authenticity and some aren’t, but the pendulum is clearly swinging… With whisky there is this thing with finishing [in different casks, whereby] the same base spirit suddenly becomes lots of different products,” says Reynier. “This is basically a euphemism to say ‘we just put a little bit in there at the last minute and it will be a different product’. But why the finish? What about the start? Whisky seems to have nothing to do with barley. Scottish whisky for instance isn’t made with Scottish barley, it isn’t? It comes from all over the place.” 

Interview with Mark Reynier conducted by the author

Spirits brands that are more open about the origin of their ingredients significantly increase their perceived authenticity. Maverick Copenhagen-based distillery 

 spirits for instance, regularly produces spirits whose bottles provide information such as the grain bill, the type of yeast used during the fermentation, and a full list of botanicals. Seattle-based 

 has made a name for itself for its range of whiskies that valorise local provenance, be this the barley or the oak used for the liquid’s maturation. Reynier’s own Renegade rum brand champions transparency too: each bottle features a ‘

’ that allows drinkers to get full details of the spirit’s provenance.

Emotive, heritage narratives are the most authentic

Authenticity can be achieved by developing a credible narrative of tradition and heritage. When it launched in 2021, British beer brand Allsopp ensured that its 

 revolved around the family’s long brewing heritage, spanning over two centuries (1730-1959). “Allsopp’s beers are the latest to reappear in London pubs and are arguably more authentic than most,” according to the London Drinker, showing how the brand was immediately perceived as historically authentic, despite it being just a few months old. 

London Drinker

 Elements of tradition and heritage evoke emotion and earn trust for brands by driving consumers to associate the product with a time that may precede the diffusion of mass-production, with a tradition and craft uncorrupted by the effects of globalisation, and more broadly with idealised pre-20th-century values. 

Journal of Brand Management

Brand Master Academy

 Launched in 2018, UK’s only Trappist brewery, 

, is brewed by the monks of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Leicestershire. The beer achieved immediate authenticity status by tapping into the centuries-old tradition of Trappist brewing.

For some drinkers, authenticity doesn’t necessarily involve elements of geographical provenance, but rather adherence to a specific life ethos – 39% of consumers, for instance, associate ‘craft’ drinks with authenticity. 

EuroMed Journal of Business

 to underpin, yet most definitions tend to agree on independence as a key characterising element. Independence is at the very heart of 

, too. When London’s Beavertown lost its ‘craft’ nature by selling out to brewing giant Heineken in September last year, some of the brewery’s fans reacted by claiming that they would ‘rather drink gin’ than keep buying its beer. 

The Daily Mail

Authenticity is in the eye of the beholder

While some consumers find authenticity in elements such as small-scale production, regional provenance, heritage, or transparency over the ingredients used, others gravitate towards brands that allow them to identify with a specific lifestyle, a community, a social status, or with shared ethical values. “Small-scale wines do not monopolise notions of authenticity for consumers,” says Maguire Smith. “Yellowtail is also authentic for somebody. It might be because it’s authentic to an original lifestyle of drinking wine [unpretentiously] by the barbecue.”

 Much of Moretti’s success for instance in the UK derives from its association with the stereotypical Italian lifestyle, despite the beer being brewed in Manchester. 

 “Authenticity is a received attribute, it’s not something objectively and inherent in a product,” says Smith Maguire. “If a consumer is oriented to experiencing authenticity through whatever attributes of the product in terms of its fidelity to an original, then it’s authentic for them.” 

 of consumers say that what they perceive as being authentic is important when deciding what brands they support

 of consumers associate ‘craft’ drinks with authenticity

of Britons agree its important to know where their food and drink comes from

Providing consumers with information on a product’s geographical origins can significantly increase consumer confidence of its high quality

Premium alcohol brands can also enhance their authentic status by shifting their focus from ubiquitous vine varieties to autochthonous grapes, hops, malts, and botanicals

People are increasingly keen to know how their food and drinks were produced, and are paying more attention to ingredient lists

Mark Reynier is the CEO of Waterford Distillery on the south-west coast of Ireland and has a combined 40-year experience in the wine and whisky trades.

Jennifer Smith Maguire is an interdisciplinary scholar specialising in the socio-cultural study of consumer culture and cultural intermediaries. She has 20 years of experience teaching in higher education in the UK, Canada, and the US, and her research focuses on the construction of markets, tastes and value, primarily in relation to food and wine. She also leads 

, the culture, health, environment, food, and society research cluster, an interdisciplinary group focused on the socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink.

United Kingdom

Eating and Drinking

Spirits and wine

Beer and cider

From rare grapes and business ethics to history and heritage, authenticity has become a key element to drinks brands’ success. But with multiple interpretations of what authenticity means to consumers, how can alcohol brands find a way to maximise the buzzword’s potential?

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