75% of millennials say they would spend more money on wine if they could and it's shaking up the way companies like Walmart sell it
- Millennials drank 42% of all wine consumed in the US in 2015, and winemakers are meeting the generation's demands.
- Online wine, beer, and liquor sales jumped in 2017, with wine accounting for 65% of all online alcohol sales.
- Canned wine is gaining popularity too, thanks to millennials' prioritization of convenience.
- Companies like Walmart are entering the market with their own private labels. This series of wine will be priced to lure in bargain hunters, but still drink like a $30 or $40 bottle, similarly to Trader Joe's Charles Shaw line.
Following is a transcript of the video:
I'm a millennial, I love wine, and I'm not the only one.
In 2015, millennials drank 42% of all wine consumed in the US. This prompted winemakers to meet them in their territory — online.
Online beer, liquor, and wine sales jumped 33% in 2017.
And from 2016 to January of this year, wine accounted for 65% of all online alcohol sales — totally eclipsing beer and spirits.
And the way wine is being packaged has changed too. Canned wine sales increased 125.2%, from $6.4 million in 2015 to $14.5 million in 2016.
That’s because convenience is key.
According to new research from Mintel, 28% of young millennials prefer to drink at home because it’s just too hard to go out.
In fact, over half of all Americans said they’d choose a drink on their couch over one at a bar. In-home drinkers prefer it because it’s more relaxing, cheaper, and personal.
And millennials love a bargain. While we’re drinking more wine by volume, Gen Xers are still spending more money on the stuff.
But 75% of millennials surveyed said that if they had more money to spend on wine, they would. But we don’t.
That may be why companies like Walmart are buying up their own private wine labels. At $11 a bottle, the bargain brand is still priced higher than its competitors. But Walmart's senior wine buyer says the bottles will "drink like a $30 or $40 bottle of wine.”
In 2017, the US bottled a total of 717,866,271 bottles of wine. But Silicon Valley Bank predicts that the wine industry might be at the tail end of a 20-year growth period. They expect premium wine sales to only grow 4-8%, compared to the 10-14% in 2017.
Millennials are predicted to overcome Gen Xers as the biggest fine wine drinking generation by 2026. So until we have enough money to indulge, it looks like we’ll be sticking with two-buck chuck.