3 Sonoma County millennials on what the wine industry is doing right, wrong

Zach Permutt scans the 88 local and global options on the Wine Wall at The Matheson in Healdsburg, ultimately settling on a Bordeaux, a glass of the Petit Figeac.

As a 39-year-old millennial, he is part of the most sought-after market in the wine industry. Ranging in age from 27 to 42, millennials account for 72 million people in the U.S., or roughly 21% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 2022, Zach’s generation proved to be the big wine spenders, outpacing all other generations — even baby boomers — with 22% of the market share. Wine analysts have warned that future sales will rely heavily on the industry’s ability to appeal to younger drinkers.

But according to Zach, the industry isn’t quite hitting the mark in connecting with his age group.

What insights can we gain from millennials like Zach? I was curious to hear their opinions about the wine industry, so I invited three to The Matheson for drinks.

Zach and 35-year-old Ben Burwell, along with his wife, 29-year-old Siena Burwell, say that what thwarts the industry’s efforts to connect with their generation is that it’s largely outdated, staid and stodgy.

With drinks on the table — assyrtiko from Greece, Bordeaux from France and pinot noir from Sonoma County — along with a smattering of appetizers including Wagyu beef tartare and risotto with rock shrimp, these millennials had their say. And between sips and bites, some major themes developed during our conversation.

“A lot of labels and practices and styles are all very traditional, so it feels like the wine industry isn’t catering to us, despite our buying power,” Zach said. “The industry has been doing the same thing for a very long time.”

Siena and Ben, meanwhile, had questions about sustainable winemaking as well as marketing and branding.

But before delving into these topics, let’s meet the millennials. Just how did they wind up in Sonoma County and what do they enjoy most about living in a wine culture?

The millennials

Siena was drinking a Greek wine, the Santo Wines, 2022 Santorini Assyrtiko, and Ben was sampling a Joseph Swan Dry Creek Valley pinot noir while they explained how they crossed paths.

“We met at a startup company in San Francisco called Crew,” Siena said.

Ben chimed in, “I was employee No. 7 and she was employee No. 13. We got laid off together at the same time in 2018.” (Crew has since been acquired by Square, a company that offers online business management tools.)

When COVID hit in March 2020, they said, San Francisco didn’t have the magic it once had. So they decided to move to Ben’s hometown of Healdsburg. They married in May and now work remotely. Ben is an account executive for SaaS Sales, a company that makes cloud-based apps. Siena is a recruiter for Surf Search, a biotech medical device and health care company.

Smitten with Wine Country, Ben summed it up this way: “You drive down Dry Creek Road surrounded by vineyards. There’s really nothing like it.”

Sitting alongside the couple at a high-top table near the Wine Wall was Zach, enjoying his glass of Bordeaux. The Santa Rosa native explained how he and his wife, Ari, moved back to his hometown from New York City in March 2020 to “hunker down during the pandemic.” A doctor who joined the world of commerce, Zach is the general manager for a global medical device business that’s part of Seattle-based Fortive.

Happy to return to his roots, Zach is currently on paternity leave to help care for 12-week-old Oren and 2½-year-old Levi.

“I grew up surfing and drinking wine and eating good food,” he said. “I was drawn back to the culture that I really grew up loving, a community built around food, wine and the outdoors.”

Living in our backyard, these millennials give us a chance to see the wine industry from their vantage point. Here’s what they said.

Catering to millennials?

“We’re looking at an industry that’s developed long before we were interested in it, and it hasn’t changed that much,” Zach said.

While there are a lot of young people delving into natural wine, Zach said that movement is on the fringe of the wine industry.

“I kind of feel like we’re part of the older generation’s wine world,” he said. “What would I want that’s different? It’s a hard question.”

Millennials, Zach said, often feel out of sync with the wine industry that developed long before wine piqued their interest.

He drew the comparison to microbreweries, which came of age alongside their generation, he said.

“We all know the labels, and they kind of developed with us,” he said, referring to brands like Sierra Nevada and the Green Flash. “We were maybe in high school or college. The wine labels are ones that my parents drank. A lot of the names are older. I think it’s the newness of the predominant labels. There’s much fewer in wine than there are in beer. So beer is more of a millennial sport.”

Certified sustainable?

According to a recent Nielsen study, 75% of millennials are eco-conscious, saying they’re willing change their buying habits to favor environmentally friendly products.

But Siena has questions about what sustainable really means in the wine industry.

“I just know that one fact — that 99% of Sonoma County wineries are certified sustainable, but what does that really mean?” Siena asked. “I feel that that’s probably not great and to me, it seems like the bar is not high enough.”

The Sonoma County Winegrowers decided in 2014 to become the most sustainable winegrowing region in the world. Today, as Siena noted, it boasts that 99% of the county’s wineries are certified sustainable by a third-party program. Sustainability, the trade organization says, preserves agriculture and multi-generational family farms.

And yet the sustainable certificate still allows vintners to use chemicals like Roundup, with its main ingredient, glyphosate, linked to cancer.

Siena wasn’t aware of this, and all three were surprised to learn that in 2018, Sonoma County grape growers treated 55% of the vineyard acreage in the county with nearly 48,000 pounds of glyphosate, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. Use of the chemical is falling, however — in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, that was down to 40,399 pounds.

In March of 2015, the International Agency for the Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Cancers like non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma have been linked to exposure to glyphosate.

Zach said the use of Roundup is unsettling and he and others feel like they’re in the dark when they’re buying wine.

“There are a few wineries I know people go to that farm biodynamically, and that’s a plus,” he said, referring to a method of farming that prohibits chemicals. “But it’s hard to know from the information on the bottle exactly what practices they’re following.”

Missing the mark with branding

In addition to confusion over how eco-friendly the industry actually is, most wine companies also miss the mark in marketing, Siena said.

She referred to beer companies that use irreverent and playful symbols to illustrate a brand, like the Lagunita’s dog and clever word play on the bottle like “Simply Pavlovian” and “The Indescribable Imbibable.”

“When I think of a wine that’s something everyone drinks or can drink, like a Kendall-Jackson chardonnay, it reminds me of my mom and her friends. But I don’t think of the label, and there’s no symbol. None of these wines have done that (created symbols), and I think that’s a huge hole that they’re missing.”

Zach pointed out that some brands are better than others as far as marketing to millennials, such as the Napa-based Prisoner Wine Co. with its provocative labels inspired by an eerie etching titled “Le Petit Prisonnier,” by 19th-century Spanish artist Francisco Goya.

Another example Ben cited was the Armida Poizin zinfandel with a skull and bones on its label, packaged in a wooden coffin. This branding, he said, makes a splash compared to the pared-down, restrained version of wine labeling.

The Prisoner and Poizin illustrate that some brands are endeavoring to catch millennials’ attention with whimsy.

Conceding some labels play to millennials, Siena said wineries still could do so much more.

The best wine bar?

As the evening came to a close, we had a good laugh when Ben and Zach answered this question: What’s your favorite place to taste wine?

“The No. 1 spot is my parents’ house,” Ben said, with a broad smile. “They always get stuff I’ve never heard of.”

Zach agreed.

“My parents are always getting wine,” he said with a grin. “They know more than I do. They’ve been drinking it for years. They open their fancy bottles and they’re super generous.”

You can reach wine writer Peg Melnik at 707-521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pegmelnik.