The wine industry is worried that gen Z and millennials are turning away from the grape, citing cost, health risks and alternatives such as mocktails and marijuana
“Wine just is mid.”
“It’s easier to smoke weed.”
“Alcohol is finally getting the rep it deserves.”
These are just a few of the reasons many young people are going sour on wine, according to a scroll through TikTok or Reddit.
The views lend weight to fears that gen Z and millennials are losing interest in the drink, with potentially disastrous consequences for the wine world. A seemingly endless stream of recent reports have warned that baby boomers, who have fueled the industry, are retiring and spending less, and millennials aren’t picking up the slack.
“You’re looking at a cliff,” the industry analyst Rob McMillan told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2022, following a key report that showed wine consumption in the US hadn’t grown in 2021 – despite bars and restaurants reopening. McMillan foresaw wine consumption by volume declining 20% in the next decade, with millennial habits key to the shift. Last year, Nielsen data showed 45% of gen Zers over 21 said they had never drunk alcohol.
The implications for winemakers are dire; late last month, one of the biggest US wine producers, Vintage Wine Estates, filed for bankruptcy, citing, in part, an “unanticipated steep decrease in demand”. And it’s not the only one facing a precipice: worldwide, wine consumption dropped 2.6% last year, hitting its lowest level since 1996, according to the International Organisation of Vine and Wine. In California, vineyards are getting ripped out; France last year announced it would set aside cash to destroy excess wine.
While the data behind the downturn is complex, industry insiders say it’s time for a change. “Why hinge so much on the way it’s always been?” the wine writer and educator Maiah Johnson Dunn puts it. “We’re just all in this weird limbo figuring out what’s going to happen next.”
In December, a TikTok from a millennial sommelier asking her audience why they weren’t drinking wine earned 1.6m views and tens of thousands of comments, with many pointing to the health risks of alcohol, the cost of wine, and alternatives such as cocktails, mocktails and cannabis. Cider is having an American moment – thanks to a new generation of crafters Read more
This shift toward other types of drinks, or simply not drinking, rings true for Ellen McNeill, 28, who co-hosts Silverlake Jams, a Los Angeles neighborhood music night that draws a crowd of mostly 24- to 39-year-olds. McNeill, who previously worked for a hard seltzer company, loves wine but sees a number of obstacles to its success among young people – not least the growing variety of alcoholic options, from hard kombucha to pre-mixed, canned cocktails.
Another big one is health – the US generally doesn’t require booze brands to put nutrition facts on their labels, leaving consumers in the dark about what they’re putting in their bodies. When McNeill was marketing the seltzer to potential drinkers, “one of the top questions was: how much sugar does it have? How many calories? Can I see the nutrition?”
Her former employer does detail its nutrition facts, but “wine doesn’t really give a shit about calories. It’s about the taste and the experience.” Indeed, concerns about sugar content seem widespread among those who say they don’t drink wine. (Some on TikTok have linked high sugar to worse hangovers, though experts have suggested it’s not that simple.)
Another is a trend toward avoiding alcohol entirely – it tends to be older guests who drink, she says. “A lot of people do stay way more sober than I initially would have expected.”
That’s in line with a growing focus on the dangers of alcohol. The World Health Organization made no bones about it in April, proclaiming: “No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health.” Between 2005 and 2023, the percentage of Americans who see moderate drinking as bad for you jumped from 22% to 39%, Gallup found. “I’ve heard wineries say it’s just been really challenging to deal with the aftermath” of the WHO statement, says Dunn, who is based in Rochester, New York, with people “scared to even visit sometimes”.