Wine for The Ages

My husband and I love to discuss world politics and how the United States fits in to things.  We pore over surveys and studies that show how Americans rate in terms of education, gross domestic product and per capital consumption of meat.  We analyze and theorize as to why Germany and France have the highest unemployment rates in Western Europe and why Ireland has one of the best economies in the world.

All this pondering recently led me to wonder where Americans are now in their consumption of wine.  How much do they drink and what do they drink.  Who is drinking wine and what do they think of wine.  It’s true that other countries have been making and drinking wine a lot longer than the U.S.  And, the last time I checked (about 10 years ago), we were consuming a lot less than most European countries, though certainly a lot more than most Asian countries.  But I wondered what the American wine consumer is doing today.

A little history is in order.

The United States wine making tradition is actually quite rich.  In California, for example, Spanish missionaries planted European grape vines near the end of the 1700s.  Colonists were cultivating wine grapes at about the same time, though these tended to be of the native grape varieties, rather than those imported from Europe.  Winemaking in the United States evolved over time in many regions, including New England, the Southeast, Texas, New Mexico, and, of course, California.  Missouri grape rootstock even saved the French wine industry when the dreaded phyloxera louse hit in the 1880s.

All was going well for the American wine industry when Prohibition hit in 1919.  A few wineries survived because they could produce sacramental wines for religious purposes.  A few converted their wine grapes to table grapes.  Most simply ripped up their wines and planted other crops. 

Although Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the damage to the United States wine industry was done.  Most of the vines were gone, and because grape vines don’t produce commercially viable quantities of grapes for 5 or more years after they are planted, very few wineries resumed their prior businesses.  Without very many wines, American tastes turned to beer and other liquors.

That began to change in the 1970s.  According to the United States Department of Agriculture, per capita wine consumption in the United States has steadily increased since 1970.  In 1970, per capita consumption of wine was 1.3 gallons.  In the same year, per capita consumption of beer was 18.5 gallons.  For distilled spirits, the number was 1.8 gallons.  In contrast, in 2000, those numbers were 2 gallons for wine, 21.7 for beer, 1.3 for distilled spirits and 49.3 for soft drinks. 

So, now we know that Americans are, on average, drinking more wine than they did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.  But who are they and what are they drinking?

The Wine Market Council is a United States wine trade association, made up of producers, importers, retailers and others in the wine industry.  It regularly studies market trends and commissioners consumer studies.  The Council’s 2006 Consumer Tracking Study determined that among American adults, nearly 34% identify themselves as wine drinkers, 27 percent as beer or spirits drinker and 39% as non-drinkers.  The study divided wine drinkers in to core and marginal wine drinkers.  Each group is about 17% of American adults, but the core wine drinkers consume about 92% of the wine.  These are obviously the folks to whom wine is marketed!

Reading this study revealed a few interesting facts about the two different categories of wine drinkers:  the core wine drinkers are generally willing to spend more per bottle than the marginal wine drinkers.  The core wine drinkers tend to prefer red wines, while the moderate wine drinkers like white and blush (or pink) wines.  This makes sense to me since my experience has generally taught me that the flavors of pink and white wines are generally more accessible and easier to appreciate than those of red wines.  It makes sense that as you sample more wines, you develop more of an appreciation for red wines.

Another interesting component of the Wine Market Council’s 2006 Study was the wine preference differences among the three largest “generations.”  These categories are the Millennials (ages 21-30), the Generation Xers (31-42) and the Boomers (43-61).  The study indicated that Millennials are more likely to drink imported wines than the other two groups while the Gen Xers and the Boomers seem to prefer domestic wines. 

Based on a number of studies I read, the Millennials are also less likely to drink wine in a restaurant than their older counterparts and more likely to experiment with unfamiliar wines.  Perhaps not surprisingly, they are also attracted to unusual packaging and brightly colored labels.  When it comes to wine closures, the older wine drinkers tend to prefer traditional corks, while the Generation Xers are more willing to try the new screwcaps.  The Millennials are the least judgmental of all in this category.  And when it comes to the amount spent per bottle, the number rises with age. 

This brings us to the most interesting fact that I learned from my informal survey of wine trend studies and articles – it seems that the older we get, the more likely we are to consume wine and the more willing we become to spend more money for premium brands.  As one analyst noted in 2001, “[t]he biggest single factor driving the growth of premium wines is the aging of America.”  According to Vic Motto of Motto Kryla Fisher, the average annual consumption of wine in 2001 for those in the 50-59 age category was 16.4 bottles per person.  In the 21-29 age group, it was 6.6 bottles per person.  Motto noted that from 2001 to 2016, more than 10,000 people in the United States were expected celebrate their 50^th birthday every day.  That number, he noted, bodes very well for the wine industry in the United States.