I agree, and the amount of headlines and tiktoks I can envision instantly tells me this could be very successful.
“Here’s the reason that wine is NOT like other alcohol”
“Check out this ONE SECRET that Europeans say helps them live a happier life”
“The Roman Empire was fueled by wine, their secret to CONQUERING THE GLOBE”
Shit writes itself
This is the way I think, as well. There’s no magic lever and no amount of anecdotes about younger generations gets any closer to cracking a code.
Look at France, a country where wine is thoroughly entwined with the culture and very good wine is on most lists for a few euros a glass. Demand has plummeted, as well.
The wine enthusiast is increasingly akin to something like the jazz enthusiast—someone who is really into a particular but not terribly popular niche pursuit. I don’t think this is good and certainly I wish there was more wine being consumed more often for the benefit of the makers, but I’m not sure what can be done. I don’t think an influx of $40 bottles of good rose on restaurant lists really moves the needle.
My solution is pretty simple. Get rid of most industrial swill and lower the. prices of pretty much everything else by at least half. Decent (currently) $20 wines take the price of current $10 swill, etc.
Then kill off the 3 tier system to create competition in the distribution and retail marketplaces and get rid of the idiotic prohibition era legislations and the stupid state by state confusion and chaos.
I’m also talking about the people who order a $20 glass of Meiomi and it makes no impression on them whatsoever because any detail about the wine in the glass is uninteresting to them. It’s a glass of wine. They care no more about it than I care about what brand of hammer I use to drive a nail.
Along those lines, we are assuming that someone is trying that wine and not liking it - do we know for sure that most folks do NOT like it? Meiomi or (choose a label you like to bash) continues to be in business because they sell a lot of wine - and continue to. As does Charles Shaw, etc.
And if we want to look at costs of things, when you go to a restaurant and pay $20 for a cocktail but can make said cocktail at home (or a close resemblance) for a LOT less, does that stop one from trying or enjoying it?
I think Bill is spot on here - and most who enjoy wine get into a bit of ‘tunnel vision’ scenario, not understanding why others would ‘accept’ something they find ‘terrible’ etc.
I don’t believe our industry is not doing well because folks don’t like what most of us have to offer at all price points - I’m of the belief that it is a combo of an older generation not purchasing as much because they have enough to satisfy their needs, their kids needs and their kids’ kids needs; many folks stocking up BIGTIME during Covid and therefore having enough to last them; alternatives to wine that have become more poplular; health concerns about alcohol in general; our current economic condition; and in the US - the fact that wine as a whole is still intimidating to many - the fact that our industry and everyone says ‘drink what you like’ but then folks are made to ‘feel bad’ for drinking wines like Meiomi, etc rather than truly accepting everyone for what they drink, etc.
So many things to unravel here - it’s interesting to talk about it but it’s a multi-faceted issue that is going to take some time to work through, for sure . . .
Cheers
Commenting on that last bit regarding wine being intimidating/people being made to feel bad etc, I was just having lunch today in Manhattan with a dear friend who owns a luxury jewelry design company. He’s the type you would imagine knows his way around the basics of the wine world, just by association. As his friend, he’s comfortable talking with me about wine and he said “I really would love to learn the basics about wine. I have a couple go-to bottles and it took me a month to figure out what they were, and now that’s what I get. I know nothing and I wish I knew more.”
Naturally, I volunteered to give him a judgement free 101 on wine, but you bring up a valid point. It remains intimidating, even to those whom one would otherwise assume knows the difference between, at a minimum, wine regions and the basics.
Exactly - and I just don’t think we have the objectivity in our indsutry (and on here) to truly see that as clearly as we need to.
Using analogies to other ‘subjective’ areas is the way to do it IMHO - it then makes it clear. As an example, I listed to the one of the leading British wine podcasts and they did a ‘mashup’ with one of the leading British coffee podcasts. They each blinded the other on the products they were ‘experts’ in and the results were interesting - the coffee folks like the most expensive wine because the wine folks had chosen a ‘simple’ red, a red that had a bit of oak aging and a red that saw a lot more oak aging with a heavier dose of new oak; the wine people liked the ‘cheapest’ coffee because . . . it smelled and tasted of coffee. The coffee folks were a bit confused - and spent some time explaining that the higher priced coffee had ‘rarer beans’ or that they were picked from ‘specific sites’ known to produce a ‘unique’ flavor profile . . . and none of this, at the end of the day, mattered via a blind tasting.
Something to think about, no?
Cheers
I almost posted this to what wine did you open (but didn’t, because I didn’t open it).
I went to dinner with my parents to one of my dad’s colleagues houses. They had a beautiful house with a beautiful recently updated kitchen and a cool walk-in wine cellar, my dad told me they were “really into wine” and at this dinner party they were serving NZ Sauvignon Blanc and Orin Swift abstract.
Anyways, the guests who were all retired or late career physicians who were talking about skiing in the Alps and their winter houses in Sedona all loved this wine that’s utterly reviled here. I don’t think the average wine consumer has the same view on meiomi, the prisoner, caymus etc.
I am still taken aback by our host in Sonoma earlier this year who said she couldn’t afford to buy wine and only drinks $10 wine from Trader Joe’s. This is a person who works at a winery and can’t afford wine. Cost of living for the younger generation has to be one of the major issues with lack of buying.
Yep - tunnel vision . . .
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers
And the kids will do edibles and shrooms instead of drinking and smoking.
It’s work life balance and good social safety net, not wine. No one will buy wine when they can’t afford to live decently.
Not expensive wine anyways. Plenty of people drink who can’t afford to live decently.
Why would they spend on $15 wine when Smirnoff is $8.99 at BevMo and will get them buzzed for way less?
Ever heard of boones farm?
If I have $10 to my name and I decide alcohol is my mean of escapism I get way more out of a 750ml 40% ABV bottom shelf vodka than a 750ml 14% ABV wine.
I think that’s important. Is wine an escape or something a little more sophisticated that you need to learn and appreciate. If someone wants to gets messed up, then there are plenty of cheap low class options.
When I was younger my girlfriend and myself would seek out wine because we wanted to be above the cheap crap and we wanted to explore wine for what mysteries it possessed. Drinking wine was growing up for us back then.
People will gravitate towards finer things in life when they have better finance and living standards. Reality is that younger generations are not drinking as much, and would pick more economical options if they drink because many are barely scraping by. Some of y’all want to see younger people to drink more refined wine? Sure, with what money?
If you have $10 you should buy 5 bottles of 2-buck-chuck and be way more rat-assed than youd be from that 40% bottle.
But not always - as was pointed out above, those who have money and can afford ‘finer’ wines are consumiing wines that many on this board would NOT categorize as ‘finer’ . . .
At the end of the day, wine is simply an agricultural product that should be on the table with lunch and dinner, right? 
Cheers