Wine Nation

We, and our wine, seem to be enduring an ailing economy with some fortitude.  Retail sales of wine in the United States in 2009 will exceed $28 billion dollars.  Millennials are holding up more than their share of the load.  And by all indications, this love affair has only just begun.

The U.S. market surpassed Italy in terms of wine consumption in 2007, and had been on pace to overtake France and become the world’s largest wine consumer within five years.  Some would argue that we have already done so.

Though consumption growth has slowed this year, wine has, on average, outperformed beer and distilled spirits for nearly 60 years straight.  If we look at simply the growth of servings per person,  Americans consumed over 18 billion glasses (5-ounce servings) of wine last year.  Wine Spectator believes that we are going to go through over 325 million cases this year.  Further evidence that it does, in fact, feel so good when it hits your lips.

Leah Hennessy is the brain trust behind Millennier Wine Sales in Los Angeles.  Millennier specializes in bringing brands to the attention of young and often new consumers.  She brings wineries together with restaurants and retailers and shows them how to reach out to this potent demographic.

So if Millennials are indeed driving much of the growth in the U.S. wine industry, where are we buying it?  According to Hennessy’s research nearly 50% of millennials are buying their wine in grocery stores and approximately 25% of the demographic is purchasing wine at liquor stores.

Leah also commands a traveling tasting group, WTF LA: Wine Tasting For Los Angeles.  She moves about Los Angeles providing affordable tastings and increasing brand awareness for wines & retailers among 20-30-Somethings.

We can also take comfort in recent data published in Wine Industry Insight and obtained from IRI,  that reveals that for the first 4 week period of the year ending January 25th, table wines sold through U.S. food and drug stores increased 6.4 percent overall and sparking/Champagne soaring with a 39.5 percent increase.  This data is compared to the same reporting period in 2008.

Tweet This Post