Wine enjoying wider audience
More younger Americans opting for glass of grape
Published: Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 3:40 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 3:40 a.m.
NAPA -- Wine, once viewed by even its fans as a beverage best saved for special occasions, is becoming a regular part of more people's lives.
For the first time, the number of regular wine drinkers in the United States exceeds the number of casual wine drinkers, according to a study issued Friday.
"2007 may well be seen as the wine industry's tipping-point year," John Gillespie, president of the Wine Market Council, told a Napa wine conference Friday. "Wine is literally soaking into the national fabric."
The council released a summary of its annual survey of consumer attitudes about wine Friday, an influential report that has identified a number of key industry trends over the years.
The council, which is funded by the wine industry, seeks to help wineries better understand market dynamics and to get "more people drinking more wine more often," Gillespie said.
Wine has faced an uphill battle gaining popularity in the United States, where Americans have long been more apt to reach for a beer or a cocktail instead of a glass of wine.
The U.S. wine market hit several milestones in 2007, developments that should make it easier for winemakers to increase future sales.
The number of U.S adults who call themselves wine drinkers has risen 53 percent since 2000, from 49 million to 75 million. Over the same period, the number of people who said they drink alcohol -- but not wine -- dropped 13 percent, Gillespie said.
But even more important than the number of wine drinkers is how frequently they consume their favorite vintages.
For years, "marginal" wine drinkers, or those who drink wine less than once a week, far outnumbered "core" drinkers, who pour themselves a glass at least once every week.
This dynamic has now changed. Last year, a majority of wine drinkers -- 55 percent -- consumed wine every week.
In addition, wine is becoming more popular with younger adults. For the first time, the average age of core wine drinkers dropped below that of marginal drinkers: 45.6 years old versus 46.9 years old, Gillespie said.
This is primarily due to an infusion of new young wine drinkers between the ages of 21 and 31, known as millennials, he said.
That bodes well for the future of the wine industry, which has worked hard to convince young adults that wine is not just a beverage for their mothers and fathers. By embracing wine in their 20s, millennials are poised to become repeat customers for decades, longer than any other generational group, Gillespie said. Plus, the millennials, at 70 million people, are the second-largest generation after the baby boomers, at 77 million.
And millions of millennials haven't even reached drinking age yet. When they do, they are likely to purchase wine like their older brothers and sisters, Gillespie said.
"It's really quite an astounding moment," he said.
Not that everything in the industry is rosy. Rose and blush wine sales are soft. Merlot continues to struggle after the beating it took in the popular 2004 movie "Sideways." Imports are increasingly gaining acceptance, posing challenges for domestic producers.
And wine sales trailed off toward the end of 2007, a sign that the slumping economy might finally be taking some of the fizz out of the wine industry's bubbly disposition, said Danny Braeger, a vice president with market tracking firm ACNielsen.
Wine sales increased 6.8 percent last year, healthy growth but less than the 8.5 percent increase the prior year, Braeger said.
A closer look, however, shows that sales grew just 3 percent in the last 12 weeks of the year, compared with the same period a year ago. In December, sales grew a mere 2.1 percent, and volume actually dropped slightly, Braeger said.
"It's not like they're in the Dumpster, but sales are slowing down some," he said. "That may be a reflection that some people are hurting more than they were."
But for every sign of trouble on the horizon, Gillespie offered several additional reasons for optimism. The typical American drank more than 3 gallons of wine in 2007, a new high. Total case sales soared past 300 million. And the United States surpassed Italy to become the second-largest wine market in the world, fast closing in on France.
But the analysis continued to return to the millennials, 47 percent of whom reported drinking more wine today than two years ago, compared to 37 percent for Generation X and 10 percent for baby boomers, Gillespie said.
"So, there is no doubt where the growth in the market is coming from," he said.
You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207
or kevin.mccallum@
pressdemocrat.com.
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