Who Drinks What

Feb. 16, 2015 – The Wine Market Council, a non-profit trade group for growers, winemakers, wholesalers – anyone seriously involved in the wine industry – recently held a seminar in Napa, CA.  The market research was intense and unless you like to read and digest statistics for fun, we’ll spare you the trove of figures, which will be perused and ingested in great detail by wine marketers, especially in corporate America.

However, we saw some breakdowns of the alcohol beverage market we thought were interesting.  For example, how many other Americans in your age group?  You’ve no idea, but here it is:

WW 11 born between 1910 and 1932 — 12 million

Swing  born between 1933 and 1946 — 30 million

Baby Boomers 1946-1964 — 77 million

GenX 1965-1976 — 44 million

Millennials 1977-1994 — 70 million

iGeneration 1995-2009 — 61 million

We’d not heard of Swing generation before.  It has been called Silent Generation or Traditional Generation.  Does Swing refer to swing music?  No idea.

The iGeneration is sometimes called the Net Generation and they’re not old enough to drink yet, legally.

Moving on, the research found that 36% of the adult population abstains.  Don’t they know that moderate drinkers live longer?

Women drink wine more than men 54% to 64% and most frequent wine drinkers do their wine drinking at home – 68% (as opposed to restaurants, bars, other people’s homes.)

Frequent wine drinkers also enjoy spirits but not beer and a growing trend for wine is red blends, which young people like.  They don’t care for merlot or syrah but blend them together and they are winners.  That will be good news for the Rhone Rangers.

So, where do you fit in?