I’m 32. I feel like I drink better wine than most did at my age 20 years ago. The amount of great, different, and interesting wine available to me is astounding, if I take the time to look for it… Sure, I’d love to try Rayas at some point because I hear it’s the tits but if I have to settle for Commando G in the interim until all my money isn’t going to debt I can’t complain. Millennials aren’t killing industries they are killing shitty industries. Grocery store wine is fucking awful and it’s always a disappointment when you know nothing about something, give it a shot to see what the fuss is about, and wish you had spent your $15 on six pack of craft brew instead. Which is why to me the natural wine movement is such a breath of fresh air. It put a real human face on the world of wine, a person I could approach who crafted it by hand, who loved those little grapes like children. It democratized wine in a way it had never been. Sure the wines occasionally taste like actual shit and give me acid reflux but I’ll take the good and the bad with my tums.
Millennials don’t want low cost entry level anything. So when they know middle of the road wines cost $50 a bottle you can bet they aren’t buyers
Like a few here I actually read the doc and details in question. I came away with very different conclusions - the long term trends seemed very positive for the wine industry, especially the part we care about (>$10 bottles) here. There are generational gaps but there is not enough analysis about predicting the future to jump to any depressing conclusions.
All the negative press is click bait. It’s negative BS spin to suck in readers. This doesn’t mean that the market isn’t changing and wine makers will have to evolve to attract future generations. Duh. Of course they will. But the base of devoted wine lovers has NEVER been stronger in the US. A great place to build from.
Fix asset price inflation and wage stagnation and the rest will take care of itself. 
Whenever people do that little song and dance about Millennials “preferring experiences” it always makes me laugh because most Millennials I know would prefer to own rather than rent but can’t because asset prices have dislocated so hard from wages. We settle for experiences because its all we can afford given asset prices, student loan debt, etc etc, and I wish these articles would stop assuming all outcomes in a market economy are due to consumer preferences. If my wife and I weren’t paying 1k a month in student loans, 2k in rent, and having to save 25% of our take home to try and get anywhere near a down payment in any reasonable time frame we’d definitely be buying more wine. Those are real numbers, we have traditionally “well paid” white collar jobs, and we don’t live in the Bay Area or NYC.
Conversely, in recent years SO MANY of my previously wine-averse friends are getting into wine HARD, but just not in the way boomers and gen-xers have. Natural/biodynamic wine and non-conventional wine culture is on the upswing really hard in urban areas, especially tied to the food scene, rather than buying and cellaring wine. I can’t tell you how many friends of mine I’ve see get into wine recently, they’re just not buying Napa cab or Burgundy.
LOL, half glass full versus half glass empty, baby. You can wallow in your pity-party or embrace the good sh*t. I’d trade you, and I like where I came from. The wine world, IMHO, is pretty awesome right now.
I don’t hear Millenial-Fu crying right now, but admittedly, he’s a flipper, cornering markets, making millions, while his fellow associates drink drek.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Also a Millennial on the older side of the cutoff. I tend to drink in the $25-35 range with the majority being “natural” wines from CA. I’m completely happy in that range and find that’s what I want to drink. Usually I buy deep and multiple bottles from a relatively small amount of wineries and 1 off bottles from a bunch of others. Most of the wines marketed to Millennials are the exact opposite of what I want to drink and I don’t think I’m alone. I have no interest in Apothic, Prisoner etc. and rarely in wines that come across as overly processed. Constellation and Gallo might as well be Applebees or Exxon for all the support I want to give to them. I’m also sick of the “Millennials are Killing…” articles, most of those things should have been killed before Millennials got to them. For myself, it has nothing to do with prices and if I can afford the “best”, I don’t let that bother me in the least, I’d rather have what comes across as interesting, authentic, not boring and whatever happens to speak to me. It’s wonderful and I feel lucky to live in an area where a huge array of great wines are available, most of the wine shops in this area that carry an interesting range of wines are absolutely packed with Millennials.
Interesting, especially on the sales decline.
Can’t say I’m surprised if millenials aren’t buying expensive wine. It is an expensive hobby. I know a millennial right in the middle of that age bracket who likes wine and makes a decent living, but cost of living in a major metropolitan area is expensive and he doesn’t spend more than 20 bucks on a bottle. Just so many other expenses to consider as well.
Think that’s a big generalization that younger people see consumption as unhealthy. I mean, a glass of pinot is not as healthy as a cup of Kale, but the youngsters I know have plenty of unhealthy habits, just like every generation before them.
The Boomers [and the Silents] have no idea how horrible the economic prospects are for the Millennials.
The average Boomer doesn’t even understand the debacle of the Student Loan Debt nightmare [much less what happens to housing prices when you’re falling off the trailing edge of a temporally isolated demographic wavelet].
No generation in the entire history of Western Civilization was told more lies than were the Millennials.
And none [or at least far too few] of the Boomers [or the Silents] were paying enough attention to the unfolding tragedy of the Millennials to even have known that they ought to have been speaking out about the lies - assuming that Boomers or Silents would have had the character necessary to try to defy the ubiquitous flood of lies - but if they had had that sort of character, then they wouldn’t have been ignoring the plight of the millennials in the first place.
Of course, the big problem for the Millennials now is how many of them swallowed the lies, hook line & sinker.
Because no one stepped forward to warn them that none of it was true.
These were futures prices in 1983. The Cos was $130 a case, Gruaud-Larose was $126, Canon was $104, Leoville Barton was < $120, Gloria was $60 or $70. Easy to learn about the wine classics in those days. No wonder we bought more wine than the millennials do.
You guys all sound like your parents, and their parents, and their parents before them. They ALL complained about the new generations as they turned into adults. What are you all gonna do next, practice your “GET OFF MY LAWN!!!” faces in the mirror?
This could potentially be the most pathetic drivel that I have ever read on this site, and that’s saying a lot.
Glad you took my response in the spirit it was intended
I don’t disagree - the wine world is, on the whole, great.
None of this is a pity party, and even if it were, your response would be a better comment on what to do about the situation than about the cause or reality of the situation.
The facts are the facts, and articles blaming Millennials for - as others have discussed - e.g. “preferring” to live 20 to a house typically ignore the facts.
Obviously, this is the first Nathan Smith post you’ve read.
Read the article, 25-year-old chiming in…
The fact that I’m here probably puts me in the top 1% of millennials in terms of interest in wine. The article above is saying that millennials are killing $100 bottle of wine…
For the slightly more positive take… The world of wine is amazing in the $20-$30 range right now, and unless you have acquired the taste for it, there’s simply no reason to be going up into the $100+ category. There are entire countries I have yet to explore and I can do that in the $20-30 range. There’s just so much going on in the wine world in that $20-30 category that there’s no need to go into that upper range unless you’re a hobbyist.
I do strongly believe in the income thing, once we hit our 40s and 50s and can afford to be spending more on wine I think we’ll get there. If you look at a lot of NBA stars (older millennials closer to 30), those are millennials with accelerated income, and a lot of them are getting into wine. I say this knowing there’s obviously a huge income gap, but I think NBA stars and other people the same age are still pretty relatable socially. The NBA is a huge reason my interest in wine evolved.
In terms of other alcohol and substitutes - craft beer and craft cocktails are definitely way ahead. They’re seen as both sophisticated and also more fun, while wine seems to be more ‘adult’ and ‘fancy.’ Although I think millennials definitely helped blow up rosé and I think a lot of millennials are into certain wines (I feel like Sauvignon Blanc and Malbec are popular). Weed is also interesting… $100 of weed lasts a fucking long time, versus a $100 bottle of wine that you’re supposed to drink within a certain time window or it’ll be ruined. That’s just a weird gamble to be taking for $100. $100 can also get you some amazing whiskeys, and whiskey you can keep around for a while and has a certain image.
With the regards to cellaring… I just don’t think any millennials have that kind of patience. A lot of millennials will have hobbies that don’t last more than a year… we move from job to job, city to city, apartment to apartment, and holding onto a bottle of wine for 10 years just isn’t realistic.
This had me cracking up!
Everyone is dead wrong. Catering to millenials just creates an air of inauthenticity and pandering, which is exactly what millenials (awful creatures that they are) reject.
Keep doing what you’re doing and they’ll come to you once they get old enough to afford good wine and old enough that they start getting horrible hangovers from brown liquor.
While I agree with you, Scribe seems to do a pretty good job of pullling off the pandering managing to sell mostly DTC.
Perhaps their pandering is what is actually authentic about them, more so than the wine, which is exactly why they can achieve millenial success.
The millennials did not ruin wine, they just reacted to the factors that ruined wine. There are many…I’ll start a list…
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In the eighties, “fine” wine was France and maybe a bit of California. Some Germans if you were old fashioned. Some Aussies if you were eccentric. No one knew anything about Italian wines because the label was always covered with straw. Now, we are aware of wines everywhere. While an app can tell you everything you want to know about a wine that you don’t know, it’s rare to sit down and drink a few wines where everyone knows them and their “qualities” and interesting stories to tell about them and boring stories about how many times you have tasted them before. Thus you experience a wine in the moment, and then it is gone.
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The inflation index is completely bogus. That $11 goes to $29 might be true in the outskirts of South Dakota or Kansas, but in urban areas it’s much worse… Sheesh, an onion is $2 here. Oh, but it’s organic… Some wines fit the 11-29 model…say NV champagnes. I could find them for $15-$20 and now they are like $50-$60…sort of proportional. Opus One was $50 when it came out I think, but now it’s over $300.
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Market is infinitely larger…sort of. In the eighties, the US was still a nascent market for fine wine. Now, the whole world can order fine wine and have it delivered in Beijing, Kiev, Tripoli, Cape Town, or Sydney overnight. Oligarchs are the new middle class trying to amass cellars and bragging rights, and the Chateau owners have noticed.
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In the eighties, it was a bottle of wine, to enjoy or impress your friends or both. Now it’s a “lifestyle” where hapless novices deign to pay $50 for a few sips of Napa’s elixir of the Gods. Wineries have their own furniture line and “lifestyle experiences”. Most workers need two weeks salary for aftertax income to buy a first growth that won’t be “optimal” for twenty years or more. I’m with the millennials…Fk that st. Oh, and to those with high tasting room prices…you’re selling all your wine at full retail bypassing the distribution and making twice or more that you would selling in a shop. So stop your sniveling, use a nominal fee, and SELL your wine.
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Evaporation of the middle class…well, for those of us affected it gives us a lot less buying power in the market.
Others?
There are I think plenty of new wine buyers to absorb almost any wine at any price…Opus still sells out, as do the classified Bordeaux and other such wines around the world. But for those without $$$, even relatively impressive cellars are a thing of the past. I hate walking into wine stores now, because if I buy a few bottles of wine it’s $400, a bit much for a casual expenditure. My knowledge used to be worth something…now I’m just an old futz 'cause no one is drinking the old wines I know and love.
Honorable mention - Decline of ethics in the wine business. Not just Rudy and the other crooks, but there used to be some sense of standards (I’ve railed on this before). How many '63 Lafites or mid-shoulder black '75 Yquems do you think millennials will drink before giving it up…wines that are known to be crap yet are priced at $500 and up. No, I think the new world of wine is camaraderie and boards like this.
Well I’ll chime in as a 32yo outlier…
My generation isn’t killing wine, but ostentatious ‘luxury goods’ more than anything (other than appelbees or straws apparently). I spend more on wine than anyone I know (per bottle or overall), but I retch at the thought of a wine described with words like luxury, prestigious, collectible, cult, lifestyle etc. That attitude does seem to be present in most of my peers. Similarly, the vast majority of my peer group would turn their nose up at a Michelin starred restaurant, but would save their pennies for a food tour in Mexico City, or would choose a 1$ taco truck over an applebees/TGIF etc.
But also this article is just clickbait; there is an entire industry dedicated to marketing to millennials and these pieces are a dime a dozen.