This is something that Ive been feeling for a while but it crystalized in my mind today when I was at the grocery store.
I rarely go into traditional grocery stores for a variety of reasons but I needed some block ice for camping tomorrow it was the only place I knew to get some. I passed the wine aisle and was not surprised to see a bunch of boring supermarket wines. Then the next aisle was the beer aisle. It was a world of difference. There were a bunch of “geek” beers like special release IPAs, sour beers, German beers and stuff from Belgium. The beer section was way more exciting than the wine section. The wine section was dull and boring and the beer section was eclectic and interesting in its choices.
Im in my early 40s and most of my wine friends are older than me. Most people I know outside of wine circles are in the mid 20s to late 30s and none of them are wine geeks. They are all beer geeks. They are politely bemused by my obsession with wine. They respect my interests but I can tell they don’t understand the appeal of wine relative to the dynamic and expanding subculture of beer appreciation and geekdom.
Id be lying if I didn’t admit to wishing that those 20 to 40 years old had the same passion for wine they do for craft beers. I wish I could go into a pub in Portland and next to the 20 beers on tap there were a bunch of eclectic wines from Jura, Sicily, Chablis, Bandol and Borolo. It makes me wonder what the wine industry’s future will be like when the baby boomers aren’t around to buy the wine.
I really do think wine has a marketing problem with younger generations.
It’s got a price problem for the younger generation, sorry, first thing that popped into my head.
The positives about beer are that generally speaking, you’ll spend $12 for six pack of very expensive craft beer vs. $12 per bottle of mediocre wine, which would you choose?
In a restaurant, Great craft beer is $6-8 max per 16oz, good wine is $9-$16, easy, it’s a 2 for 1.
The issue with grocery is that all alcohol is purchased through a central location and shipped out, so all major brands that are shipped through Southern are successful. Generally speaking, Big Grocery will always feature regional alcohol. if you have no regional wine then there will be no small wineries featured in that grocer, but almost every city has breweries, so al, so they replace that space with craft beers.
I spent a good ten years drinking craft beers before I got back into drinking wine. I really love a good beer, but force myself to drink all the wine I have bought over the last ten years. Life is tough when forced to make this decision! A real first world problem.
The stores I frequent have a good wine selection though not geeky. I even buy whites and rose for TW @ TJ’s.
That’s a fair point and that certainly must play a part. A lot of my craft beer drinking buddies are successful white collar types that would have no problem affording good wine, but it makes sense that their tastes were formed during college when they had less disposable income. Then again I discovered my love for wine as a freshman in college and drank both beer and wine.
While Id agree you cant ignore price, I think culture certainly plays a part too. Beer is “cool” and part of the lifestyle young people self-identify with.
I remember when I was visiting burgundy once my wife and I stopped into a little bar while waiting for a restaurant reservation in Nuits St George and I was struck by a table of loud construction worker-types still in their bright yellow work outfits sharing a bottle or rose wine. I remember thinking you would never see that in America. Beer is the “macho” drink that one has in that context.
That definitely not the dynamic for us here in northern California. There are literally thousands of wine producers within an hour or two of us.
Never drank beer and never seen the attraction of the stuff that was advertised on TV, I mean, c’mon, it is a manufactured product the way wine is not. Wine is more natural and there is such a variety. It is wayyyy cooler than mashed up grains and hops.
I disagree. It must be the circles you hang out with. The Millennials are who the wineries are marketing to. You pick any wine event in Sonoma County and at least half of the participants are under 30 years of age. I am seeing a huge shift in the wine buying demographic. They are drinking it but they cannot all afford geeky wines plus in (Northern) California the selection is skewed for obvious reasons.
That’s good to hear. I’d be happy to be wrong about this. I wonder what the dynamic is though that results in my local mainstream market having such a great beer selection next to such a boring wine selection. The craft beer industry just seems to have more fresh energy and momentum from my (possibly too-limited) antidotal experience. Even at our local Whole Foods market they have a “beer garden” where you can sit outside and order craft beers and eat food. They have some wine selections too but they are always dull in comparison to the interesting beers they have. The clientele is most late twenty and early thirty something’s that work at Intel or other local well paying white-collar jobs. For sure a demographic that can afford wine, but they don’t seem to be ordering it much in that context.
Of course at the end of the day, both our experiences are antidotal. My post here was just a random musing. I’m motivated to look for some formal studies that might illuminate any trends.
It’s thesis is that millennial-aged wine drinkers are not locked into beer or wine but are enjoying a mix of different types of alcoholic drinks. It would be appear that my antidotal observations doesn’t match the data:
Driving the growth of craft beer are Millennial consumers, who are now ages 19–33, according to Frank, Rimmerman. Millennials have been seen as a key demographic for wine sales because the size of the generation — up to 80 million — and preferences for fine wine are comparable to those of baby boomers, the current core wine market.
There seem to be a lot of US studies, and summaries of studies.
US wine consumption is reportedly increasing and the consumer base is broadening. Under 35s are the fastest growing consumer age group. It appears there is transitioning to “better wines” as they age from 21 to 35.
Having popped in to a number of bars during a recent bike trip from Pittsburgh to DC, there’s no doubt that Microbrews are front and center. They’re often local, the quality can be excellent, they’re comparatively cheap, and fairly easy for staff to understand and sell. A few generic wine choices were usually available but I never saw anything remotely resembling a list of interest, short, long or otherwise. I did see a few short varietal lists, no vintages, no labels, just grapes.
Is there room for a quality “wine bar” in McKeesport, PA; Cumberland MD; or Harpers Ferry WV? Doesn’t appear to be. My limited observation is that fine wine is a “city thing”, with not much chance of pushing beyond the suburbs.
My siblings are Millennials, and the only interest I see from them and all of their friends is in VA Wine, and that is a direct result of living in Northern VA and wine tourism being big in VA.
Outside of that, they’ll drink my wine and say ‘that is REALLY good’, but there is no follow through. They are happy to go back to their craft beers and cocktails.
I think I agree with Jason to a point, but I’m not sure this is the only driver - wines priced over $30 dollars aren’t even a consideration for these people. I don’t think their rationale is the price of fine wine vs. fine craft beer. The comparison isn’t even made in their minds.
Beer, wine, then scotch - sounds like a typical family gathering for me.
I don’t think it’s unfair (or disparaging) to say that beer is more accessible than wine or that it most cases it’s more “obvious” in terms of particular flavors/aromas. Also keep in mind that it’s generally served more consistently (40-50 degrees) with no particular windows for drinking other than drinking fresh with few exceptions. Consequently it’s served far more consistently and properly than wine.
Wine on the other hand is inherently more complicated than beer. It’s more difficult to perceive in terms of aromas, it’s more difficult to serve (temperature, aeration), it’s more difficult to store and so on. It’s also much more expensive and harder to preserve once opened due to the format. (whereas beer commonly comes in 12 ounce portions). I also believe that tannin is a very difficult element for some people to become accustomed to which certainly pushes people towards more modern, blown-out wines with totally resolved tannins. Unfortunately these wines tend to be very simple and thus betray the true essence of wine.
I’d suggest that your perspective, as a serious wine enthusiast and now winemaker (I signed up for your list last year, when are the first wines coming out?), may be skewed, though.
When you look on the grocery shelf and see Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, Ferrari Carano Fume Blanc, Erath Pinot Noir, Casillero del Diablo Carmenere-Merlot, Las Rocas Garnacha and Jadot Pouilly Fuisse, you think “man what a bunch of boring supermarket wine.” But to someone that isn’t a wine geek, it’s probably “wow, look at all this cool stuff from dozens of different varieties and from every corner of the world.”
Conversely, I wonder if a comparably serious beer geek looks at the supermarket collection of Anchor Steam, Sam Adams, and [insert names of Pacific Northwest microbrews with consciously ironic names and which taste like a sawmill] and thinks it’s really boring, conservative stuff, but maybe looks across the aisle at the 300 different wines and thinks we’ve got it so much better.
Chris, as someone who is clued into the beer world (brother in law is a collecter and home-brewer), I think that’s exactly how they see supermarket beers. Depending on where you live and what’s available I do think that there are more “high-end” craft beers on the whole, but there’s unlikely to be Alesmith, Firestone-Walker Proprietor Series, Chimay Grande Reserve and Rochefort sitting on the shelves.
That said, if you are looking for higher end craft beer and imports they’re significantly more available at places like Cost Plus World Market, Beverages & More or comparable stores. I’ve found that the wine selection at these places, while better than your average supermarket, isn’t close to the overall quality of the beer selection and are still flooded with plonk labels and mass produced wines.
Berry – Part of what you are seeing/experiencing may be the good ‘ole Central Valley mentality. When we lived in Modesto, wine was very much a ‘fancy’ drink to most of our friends – save for a few wine geek friends that I met on the boards. There always seemed to be a social pressure to stay in your ‘box’ – beer OR wine OR liquor. I joke about it now, but I never got interested in beer until I moved to wine country – I always equated beer in the Valley with a 24 pack of Keystone, consumed in the parking lot before attending Xfest.
What you see in a Central Valley supermarket is the reflection of customer buying habits. Wine consumers tend to be very committed to the brands they know – Silver Oak and Caymus are kings. I heard at one point that Rombauer Chardonnay was one of the most in-demand, highly allocated wines in the Central Valley. A wine buyer who brings in the geek stuff is doomed to fail in that market – it happened a few times in Modesto.
The craft beer thing is a much easier sell in a conservative and a not-quite-recovered economy market like this – still macho and only slightly more expensive. As was mentioned above, metro markets will need to be relied upon to drive the geek/undiscovered wines – and they are doing a good job with Millennials.
I disagree. People can move directly into wine (like myself) without going through beer. Wines were delicious, whereas I could never stomach bitter hops; I feel like that is the learned response(!) - wine is like grape juice.
I suppose it depends on which beers you’re drinking but a significant amount of beer, particularly European imports, use hops for aromas and flavor rather than sheer bitterness. It’s the West Coast IPAs that tend to be extremely bitter. (40-80+ IBUs). But again, I think that generally speaking beer is more approachable. There’s higher residual sugar in beer than wine as beer yeasts are less efficient (less attenuation) than wine yeasts which are more tolerant of alcohol and ferment drier. Hops typically help clean up any overt sweetness in beer (like acidity, minerality does for wine) but unless there’s a significant amount of bitter hops (IPAs, Imperial beers) you don’t typically get big bitterness.
Plus, you’re not getting any significant tannin in beer for commercial operations whereas most red wine naturally contains substantial amounts of tannin unless beaten into submission by winemakers (by substantial I mean easily perceptible). Tannins are why a substantial portion of the population either drink white wine or drink red wine that is vinified to have little to no tannin or contain higher residual sugar. On top of all that, wine is also higher in alcohol and individuals have varying levels of sensitivity to it in terms of taste and effect.
All that said, I’ve got the "palate of a yak"™ (Alfert) and am very tolerant of tannin, acidity, bitterness, brett, alcohol and all that. I jumped right into wine (then scotch, then beer), but that’s not the case for a lot of people. I started with black tea, black coffee and moved on from there.
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