Even amongst my friends that are under 30 who have the disposable income to support an interest in wine, there are only a handful who prefer it over beer/liquor. My hypothesis is that there isn’t enough initial inertia to overcome the roadblocks, as the wine culture from the outside looking in is really confusing and there is always the risk to sound stupid. Thoughts probably holding people back: How do you know what to order? How do you describe what you like and don’t like? What’s worth the money what isn’t? How do I learn and experiment more on my own without opening an entire bottle for myself?
Lol. Formal request.
This is my first post after being a long time lurker. I am 34, I have really fallen for the wine bug, it started at 30. A lot of the things I love about the hobby grew through travel first and foremost. The true ideas that the best wine in the world comes from the most beautiful places in the world. Made me fall in love. A 300 bottle collection and growing has followed
I honestly the think beer and bourbon has replaced wine a lot as a hobby in my generation.
34 yrs old here - I’ve been drinking wine for a decade. However, I have drinking alcohol for longer than that. Face it, you’re either drinking cheap beer or cheap liquor in college. You graduate, somebody hands you a “real” paycheck for the first time and you decide to put on your big boy pants and…buy expensive beer and expensive liquor!
Besides what you’re already used to, money is a huge factor. Craft beer geeks spend $100 tops for the best of what craft beer has to offer. A $350 Vanilla Bean Dark Lord from 3 Floyds is wine’s DRC. That bottle of Pappy for a few hundred bucks is the same thing…you can buy the absolute best of the best in beer and spirits for a fraction of what it costs for the wine equivalent.
Other factors - intimidation factor/storage/etiquette
Intimidation - Wine novices are scared to death of not knowing exactly what wine smells like or tastes like. Us nerds put a huge implied learning curve on wine - just look at any random tasting note and there are more descriptors than an entire Thanksgiving dinner would have. Not to mention that even the same wine on two different nights can taste different. Bud Light tastes like Bud Light. Not everyone wants drinking to be so cerebral - however, there’s a good reason hipsters are latching on to it. Anything for the beard pullers.
Storage - Put your beer in the fridge and your booze in a cabinet. But wine? Well, that’s a different story and it has a price tag. Of course we all know many wines are sturdy enough to sit around for awhile without proper storage, but again, a learning curve here too.
Etiquette - when is the last time you yelled at someone for how they were holding their rocks glass? Never. A wine glass? Get your hands off the bowl!!! Give it a swirl. Stick your nose in it. Swish it around in your mouth. Suck some air in. Decant it. Eat this with it, but definitely not that. A lot of rules to remember - no other beverage has nearly the same pomp and circumstance.
I was drawn to wine for reasons in addition to taste. I have the collector gene. Every wine being different appealed to me. Learning different regions and why things worked better/worse in them was curious to me. Being able to drink something older than myself was mind blowing - can’t even do that with a Twinkie or McDonald’s cheeseburger (though some may disagree!).
But in the end, sometimes a person just drinks to get a buzz. I’ve sat with hundred millionaires who had a preference for solely Coors Light. Wine ticks a couple other boxes for some people and for some, it’s just not utilitarian enough.
Charles, welcome to the board. Keep the posts coming - the young blood keeps things fresh around here!
Honestly, I don’t give a s**t anymore as to why more young people aren’t into it. I empathize because in the past I have fretted myself on this board and posted threads about why younger people aren’t into classic wine like Port and what can we do about it and blah blah blah.
Truthfully, though, I have stopped giving a rat’s ass about it which is why I haven’t posted on it lately. I’ve reached an epiphany – it’s all about me now. I don’t care anymore about why younger people aren’t more into it. I only care about what good wines I can get my hands on for myself and hanging around people with similar tastes and figuring out my plans to raid Jay Hack and Roy Hersh’s cellar collections one day.
If younger people get into wine, great. I’ve got a ton of sweet wines to share with them. If not, I have no inclination to waste breath or thought on the matter any more. All that matters is that I am into wine now and will make up for lost time by getting my grubby hands on as much good stuff as possible at affordable prices due to reasonable demand because younger people are neither intelligent nor affluent enough to be into wine.
This said, if you had to press me as to why they are not, I can tell you that as a young person, I had absolutely zilch experience with wine other than the crappy Manischewitz stuff at formal functions my family attended. Certainly not the best way to get introduced to the stuff. The crowds I hung around as a kid with were all into cheap tap beer and cheap liquor for shots with no appreciation as to quality; my family drank commercial Canadian beer that literally smelled and tasted like urine (Labatt’s 50, Molson Canadian, Carlsberg, etc.).
I only got into wine because of food and because a friend of mine seized upon the idea of getting me some icewine because of my love of food. Truthfully, though, I was ready for it. Working, relatively well off, major foodie, no distorted perceptions of alcohol due to no relations with the alcoholic relative in my family which I previously posted about.
Still, if you had to push me to give my final observations on the matter, I’d say younger people aren’t into wine because the circumstances that would get them into it just have not aligned up properly. The major factors I notice that finally bring people into wine, some of which people have already mentioned above me, are:
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Affluence. People want to start buying nicer things the more money they make. Wine is nicer than beer. Comes in a bigger bottle. Prettier color. It’s an indicator that you’ve made it.
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Professional careers. There is a pressure in certain professional careers to be knowledgeable about wine: financial people, doctors, lawyers, etc.
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Age. Everyone I know that has gotten into wine starts out older. I never met anyone who started in their 20’s.
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Mentoring. Just as I was slowly dragged into this by others who were already into it, I find that many into wine either seek out a mentor or somehow get hooked up with one.
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Maturity – and this is mutually exclusive of age. Clarifying after Scott’s post: I have found that as the friends and family I know have matured, they seemed to fall more and more into wine and leave beer and liquor behind. Those who don’t seem to have grown up and still enjoy getting hammered on a regular basis always went for beer and liquor. Wine seems to be the mature drink for adults, so to speak.
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Affluent and successful peers. Once your similarly affluent and successful friends and co-workers ditch the beer for wine, people tend to follow.
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Food appreciation. Especially in today’s foodie culture, people who are big-time foodies eventually find their way into wine as I did.
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Travel. Those who travel are often also those who get into wine. There is definitely a correlation there.
The only ways I can forsee to get younger people into wine now are to put cheap wine in single cans and bottles and market it as twice as strong as beer or start giving them jobs where the increased affluence and exposure to professional and peer pressure combined will lead them towards wine.
"Age. Everyone I know that has gotten into wine starts out older. I never met anyone who started in their 20’s. "
Tran, I started in my late teens when I was stationed in the Frankenwein zone in Germany in the late 70s. MANY of us got into wine there and at a very young age.
What I find interesting is the number of people who SHOULD fit into the wine geek demo - they enjoy cooking, good food, chasing new restaurants, and have the disposable income, but barely have a passing interest in wine.
Also, wine isn’t just expensive. Wine is REALLY expensive. Even on an alcohol adjusted basis, a $10 6-pack of craft beer at 6% ABV is equivalent to a $7 bottle of 12% ABV wine. For $7, you might not get a terrible wine, but you’re not going to get anything that is going to lead to an interest in MORE wine. And of course, you can get cheaper wine, but you can also get MUCH cheaper beer. $15-20 bottles are often thrown around as “value” wines, without the recognition that’s still really expensive hooch.
Tran, I got a big kick out of reading your post. Although I’m a younger guy, I completely see where you’re coming from. Truth be told, I’m not too far off in my personal thoughts on the matter. I will gladly let my friends drink their Miller Lite while I continue to snipe 80’s Napa Cabs and Zins for $20/btl on Winebid.
![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
i’ve been enjoying wine since i was 23, i’m now 34. i had a great start. i met a lot of people who were enthusiastic in educating me about wine. one in particular was stan kato who owns grapetray in fresno. he made drinking wine approachable/fun…and he was very generous with his time and wine. i was drinking bryant family and harlan at his monthly tastings. he welcomed me and my gf (now my wife) and made it really enjoyable for us. my perception early on was that wine people are great/generous group of people.
then all hell broke loose when some mutha f*cka opened a 92 leflaive chevy monty and 85 dujac cdlr…i’ve been chasing it since.
i’ve been paying it forward like what stan and the others did for me…and will continue to do so.
Good discussion. I feel like the numbers of young people who drink wine is substantial and growing, but very few are going to get into collecting and geeking out over wine like we here do. Those are two very different things.
Age aside, I pour good wines for every guest who comes to my house, and most of them really enjoy it and many show some genuine interest in what the wine is, but none of them go out and get a WS-Pro and CT account, buy a Eurocave, and start getting on mailing lists and posting on WB.
Dammit Fu, look what you’ve done! ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Why do young people tend to shy away from wine?
Mark - part of it might be you. If you’re hunting out this or that Burgundy you think you should have, and most people just want something for dinner, they’re very unlikely to follow your lead.
As far as a beer or cocktail culture, that was the case when I started drinking wine years ago. It was much rarer to find people who cared much about wine than it is today. There were no craft beers around at that time either, and the horrific word “mixologist” had not been invented. Wine is getting ever more popular, but I think cocktails and craft beer have been gaining popularity faster. Every day there seems to be a new kind of liquor on the market.
With drinks, you can order one and your friends can each order their own, or you can mix drinks yourself on the patio. With wine, you’re generally stuck with a bottle unless you have found a great by-the-glass place and if you have a bottle, everyone gets the same thing. Besides, people like sugary drinks and wine just isn’t as fun.
Plus, people can get creative with drinks so bartenders become minor celbs. As in: “Ooh ooh, he grows his own herbs to use as garnishes. Ooh ooh, he puts bacon in his Bloody Marys.”
With wine where’s the creativity? “I think a crisp Sancerre would go with that dish.”
The more geeky someone is about wine, the less interest that person is likely to generate, particularly if the person tries to tell other people what kinds of wines they “should” like, talks of rare finds, speaks of price, or criticizes one or another type of wines. OTOH, genuine passion, coupled with generosity, can spark an interest. And by passion, I mean genuine love for the product and its consumption, rather than it’s purchase or ownership.
As others have mentioned, price is a big thing. If you’re sharing with non wine-drinking friends, and price comes up at all, it can be a deal killer. Especially if it’s along the lines of “This is a $100 wine but I got it for $34”.
OTOH, last night I had a nine-dollar wine that I hadn’t tried for a few years. It was pretty good. I wouldn’t be ashamed to share it with anyone, wine drinkers or not. But telling someone that there’s a lot of wine that isn’t too expensive, is kind of condescending, whether it’s meant to be or not.
Personally, I gave up worrying about whether someone else likes wine or not or whether young or old people drink it or don’t. I like it and that’s enough.
i’ve been downing burgs before fu found out about wine. 
C’mon, we all know Fu’s mom was sneaking Grand Cru Burgundy into his sippy cups.
Welcome to non-lurking status, Charles! I’m sure I speak for many here when I say I hope you see fit to chime-in on other threads regularly and frequently.
probably true, you old
Plus, people can get creative with drinks so bartenders become minor celbs. As in: “Ooh ooh, he grows his own herbs to use as garnishes. Ooh ooh, he puts bacon in his Bloody Marys.”
get off my lawn
Can’t agree with you. The younger generation is way ahead and more educated than I was at 25. They also now can get college credit for wine. Plus they tend to be more adventurous than the Boomers who tend to be fixated on Napa wines.