I linked the Forbes article in one of my posts
People who spend more than $20 on a bottle of wine.
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This topic came up with my adult children as we drank wine together over Christmas. One big issue for the office happy hour is all those remote workers that may be in a different town or State. Getting kids picked up from daycare is also a factor for some.
Both agree that the number of “ office “ happy hours have declined significantly. However, it doesn’t mean that groups aren’t getting together independently. Both talked about certain groups of the guys going out, as well as the “girls “ getting together for drinks after work on occasion. Rarely, it appears that the groups co-mingled. One thing was very clear, the bonds between in office attendees were strengthening while nearly nonexistent with the out of sight, out of mind, remote workers. This will have long term lasting effects.
I believe both kids would agree that a lot more intra office socialization between some of the workers occurs than management is aware.
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alert
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myself and 4 other wino’s share pics all the time of our wine bottles almost daily
kind of a new remote happy hour via group text even though we are in the same town
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So are you just going to pretend that someone hasn’t called you out as a fraud and said you don’t actually work in the restaurant business and that the distributor whose tasting you claim to have gone to has never heard of you and that you were never at their tasting? I’m told that’s your MO when called out, but wow, I guess anything to keep up the charade.
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I was wondering the same thing
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Lolololololololo wut??
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Just because you didn’t get invited doesn’t mean a party/happy hour didn’t exist. 
Just because you didn’t get invited, nor heard about it, doesn’t mean Joe didn’t have X, Y, Z, &A and SOs over for a back yard bag over Memorial Day.
My neighbor plays golf most every Saturday with friends from his office. They take their bragging rights in the bar afterwards, not at the office on Monday.
Not much has really changed as things fully recover from the Pandemic. Gen Z may not be into socializing in person, but Z is still a minority of the workforce in many companies.
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I just spent a week in Provence, France, in the wine country. Amazing how many vineyards there are in such a small place. I also saw some going fallow, not being tended to, and on one bike ride we literally watched a tractor pulling up really fresh, healthy looking vines. Laurence from Pegau made more than a few comments about the challenging economy for the wine industry right now.
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Fallow is an agricultural regulation, I believe, for vineyards in France to ensure sustainability and soil health.
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I likewise was not a big fan of the analysis.
Found this one by SVB which has a ton of interesting takeaways ranging from winery financial health, to tasting room fees, and average spend per bottle by age group.
As common sense would dictate, older consumers continue to spend more on wine than younger consumers (until age becomes a factor for drinking), with the caveat that millenials in general are spending more per bottle now than in previous years (which is attributed to a post-COVID increase in luxury spending):
Interestingly, the share of the spending increasingly weighted towards older consumers - so even with the increase in per bottle spend, millenials overall spend less on wine:
Really recommend a full read, there are a TON of data-supported takeaways: https://www.svb.com/globalassets/library/uploadedfiles/wine/svb-state-of-the-us-wine-industry-report-2025.pdf
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Visited Stampede vineyard yesterday in Lodi/Clements Hills and right across the street, a 25 acre old vine vineyard was getting torn out and burned. So sad to see.
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This is on DTC wine only. 20-year-olds are not spending $32.90 on a bottle of wine on average. Additional context is given in the actual report.
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I will look for some data snippets thru May when I get home this week and see what I can share on consumer takeaway trends.
Thanks for pointing this out. The article is very unclear. It’s also a sampling of only 1584 wine consumers for the 2023 numbers. This doesn’t tell us much of anything about the market as a whole.
Missed the DTC point while skimming through, although the takeaway for me was more on the trends related to age groups pending than on the dollar value.
Then again, limited value as a proxy with such a small sample size
It’s still an excellent set of data and well worth considering. There is still a segment of MIllenials that aren’t at the full on wine buying age yet and Gen-Z is still 8-10 years away.
But, if the industry is trying to market like it’s 2015, then they are royally fucked.
The more luxury aspect of buying from Millenials and some Gen-Z does require the industry to examine itself. Now, does this mean that boxed wine is screwed and that people are buying table wines? Or, does this trend obliterate wines under-$15?
There’s the other thing to consider where it’s commonly commented on as to how “young” millenials look compared to older generations. How much has marketing bottled water and pushing hydration along with better skin care+less hard drinking play into it all?
The thing is, we really won’t know for another 10-15 years how it all plays out.
The thing is, we really won’t know for another 10-15 years how it all plays out.
Indeed. Its not looking good right now but like all things, change can happen for the better or worse for wineries in the USA and all around the world. We shall see. IMHO, I think we’ve seen the “golden age of wine consumption, grape growing and winemaking” from the 60’s to now. I don’t foresee the glory days to come back, although things could be steady as time moves forward 
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