NY Times: The American wine industry has an old people problem

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Price point for good wine is part of the issue. Yes, there are bargain buys that can be great but there is a sea of awful wine to go through to find a good bargain buy. I know many who do not like wine because all they have had is cheap wine that is mass produced and not good. You give them quality wine and they like it but the price point is hard. I have watched wine prices steadily increase on the types I like to the point now where I buy a lot less and am fortunate to have arrived at making my own wine that is comparable to a 40 dollar bottle IMO. Saves me a lot of money but many do not have the luxury of making their own wine or buying wines they would enjoy due to price point. I know everyone says you can find good cheap wine which is much more true in Europe. In the US most cheap wine is hard to drink but a few gems can be found. For someone trying to get into wine, the amount of bad cheap wine to sift through is too much and it's hard to justify paying more for better wine when you are not sure you like it yet.
 
For someone trying to get into wine, the amount of bad cheap wine to sift through is too much and it's hard to justify paying more for better wine when you are not sure you like it yet.
👆
I still hesitate to buy any wines at the liquor store because it’s such a crap-shoot. That’s one of the reasons I like wineries. Try before you buy!
 
"What's the word?"
Thunderbird!
"What's the price?"
Fifty twice, minus one make 99 cents a full quart!
"What's the reason?"
Grapes in season!

This was our choice when we were teens looking for a "high." A six pack of local beer ("Iron Stomach" or Iron City to you) was $1.25. If you were really flush, $1.75 for Budweiser, Miller's or Schlitz!
Bring back boones farm. That will entice the 17 and 18 yr olds.
 
I still hesitate to buy any wines at the liquor store because it’s such a crap-shoot.
Try Vivinio on your phone. Take a picture of the label using the app, and it looks up consumer ratings. I find that anything rated at least 3.6 / 5 is good, and have found real gems. I rarely pay more than $15 USD for a bottle.
 
"What's the word?"
Thunderbird!
"What's the price?"
Fifty twice, minus one make 99 cents a full quart!
"What's the reason?"
Grapes in season!

This was our choice when we were teens looking for a "high." A six pack of local beer ("Iron Stomach" or Iron City to you) was $1.25. If you were really flush, $1.75 for Budweiser, Miller's or Schlitz!
99¢ Genny Cream six pack on sale ! The good days
 
While I can say my 27 year old daughter has always disdained wine, preferring cocktails and beer, she is coming around! She lives in another state so doesn't get to try many of my wines, but has confessed she's learning to like wine. It was a sheepish confession, given her previously clear dislike. I think there's hope for the younger generation. I didn't care for wine much when I was her age, either, yet look at me now - 6 carboys aging for that perfect moment to bottle. :)
 
How a California winery flipped it's consumer base to younger generations:

Wente.

How a California premium winery quickly flipped its boomer-dominated consumer base to younger generations​

Aly Wente, vice president of marketing and customer experience, speaks during a Unified Wine and Grape Symposium panel discussion in the Hyatt Centric hotel on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (Jeff Quackenbush / North Bay Business Journal)

Wente Vineyards since mid-2019 has dramatically changed its approach to social media, such as featuring the women in leadership at the family-owned winery in Northern California's Livermore Valley. (North Bay Business Journal screenshot)

Prema Behan, co-owner and general manager of Sonoma County-based Three Sticks Wines and Head High Wines, speaks during a Unified Wine and Grape Symposium panel discussion in the Hyatt Centric hotel on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (Jeff Quackenbush / North Bay Business Journal)





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Wente Vineyards since mid-2019 has dramatically changed its approach to social media, such as featuring the women in leadership at the family-owned winery in Northern California's Livermore Valley. (North Bay Business Journal screenshot)

JEFF QUACKENBUSH
THE NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL
January 31, 2023, 4:59PM
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Amid more sobering reports this month that wine is becoming an increasingly tougher sell to younger, diverse generations came two surprising signs that the industry can quickly and successfully change course.
In one case, a 140-year-old California winery discovered how to quickly shift its consumer base away from being dependent on boomers, who have been key consumers of premium wine for decades but are declining in population as they age.

And in another case, a recent social media–fed surge in demand for a historically small wine category, has led to eye-popping sales growth led by consumers who statistically don’t consider wine their adult beverage of choice.
The takeaways came during a panel discussion at the just concluded three-day Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento.
Founded in 1883, Wente Vineyards of Livermore Valley east of San Francisco had a consumer mix common for a long-running premium brand — dominated by boomers, said panelist Aly Wente, vice president of marketing and customer experience, during the session Jan. 26.
The boomer generation currently spans ages 58–76, with a median of 67 years, or just past what’s typical for retirement.

But in the past three years, Wente’s consumer mix flipped. It is now dominated by Generation X (ages 42–57) and millennials (ages 26–41), with boomers in third place, the fifth-generation executive said during the discussion.
“The boomers grew up with Wente on their table, and now we've successfully transitioned it down through the generations by really honing in on what matters,” Wente said.
When her great great-grandfather, Carl H. Wente, started the winery, what mattered was talking to consumers about the land, the farmer, a good-quality product.
“It’s worked for us for a long time, but I don't think it's going to work for the long for the future,” Aly Wente said to the audience of industry professionals. “And if we want to have a 150-year-old brand, we have to really start thinking about what about our brand is authentic and real.”

Wente joined the family company full-time in mid-2019 after nearly four and a half years in marketing management for Constellation Brands’ fine-wine brands such as Simi, Robert Mondavi and Ruffino.
It was during market research in the Midwest for Constellation that Wente learned about communicating the beverage to consumers who are new to premium wine. The team showed a focus group a brand with a wine score of 91. Ratings over 90 usually are deemed superior or recommended by various wine reviewers’ scales.
“A woman put up her hand, and she said, ‘I think this is a Weight Watchers point,’” Wente said. “We live in a wine bubble. The consumer is not as educated as we think — and they don’t want to be. That creates a barrier for entry. This poor lady thought that if she was going to drink this bottle of wine she would overexceed her daily calories.”
In the past three years, Wente Vineyards’ consumer messaging has significantly changed, from talking about characteristics of different clones of chardonnay — the winery’s specialty — to focusing on who runs the company and how.
“They care that we have women leaders across the board,” Wente said. “We have talked about sustainability in different ways, moving from being a farmer to what sustainability means and trying to educate while making it a little fun and personal.”
Among the big changes Wente Vineyards of California’s Livermore Valley has made to its social media presence to reach younger generations is to feature the women who with leadership roles in the 140-year-old family-owned company. This Instagram post featuring, from left, winemaker Elizabeth Kester and fifth-generation leaders Aly Wente, vice president of marketing and customer experience, and Niki Went, director of winegrowing. (North Bay Business Journal screenshot)

Among the big changes Wente Vineyards of California’s Livermore Valley has made to its social media presence to reach younger generations is to feature the women who with leadership roles in the 140-year-old family-owned company. This Instagram post featuring, from left, winemaker Elizabeth Kester and fifth-generation leaders Aly Wente, vice president of marketing and customer experience, and Niki Went, director of winegrowing. (North Bay Business Journal screenshot)
She has helped the family brainstorm on how younger consumers were engaging with social media, especially what platforms they were using to post pictures of the company’s wine. And one platform that’s ripe for vintners to use for wine education is TikTok, Wente said.
“They want to learn,” she said about enthusiasts of the short-video platform. “They’re excited to keep watching the same stories over and over. How do we build a TikTok campaign around sustainability that talks about it in a fun way?”
Related: Digital Marketing: Why your business needs TikTok. Here are 10 tips to get started
That same TikTok enthusiasm played a role in taking a tiny category of wine, port fortified wine, into gargantuan sales results, at a time when almost all other specialty wine categories saw declining volume of sales last year, according to panelist Dale Stratton, a consumer behavior analyst and president of Wine Market Council.
 
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jswordy ....... this has been a really great discussion with a lot of different views from WMT members.

Yes, it has been great, and now I'll weigh in with my opinion. To me, the problem with wine, the way the industry is now structured, is that you cannot – for the life of me – KNOW what the hell you are getting until you open and taste it. I don't care if it was $15 or $150, you just don't KNOW. And ALL of us have experienced that higher-dollar bottle that was so touted, and then you open it and it is like WTF is this crap? 😄

Oh yeah, you can rely on ratings and drinker reviews or friends' recommendations and etc. With wine, they don't mean squat. You're taking a risk. But contrast that with beer or spirits, where you can KNOW what you are getting when you buy it. I know a Budweiser or Blue Moon or Fat Tire tastes just so, and I know that Seagrams or Jack or Jameson's, etc. taste just so. If you buy Pappy van Winkle or Maker's Mark, you KNOW what kind of taste to expect coming in that bottle. Name your beer or spirits brand, and when you do, you know it tastes just so. And they ALWAYS will taste that way, every time.

Not so of wine, where even price is not a guide. It is an esoteric art to price a bottle of wine, more dependent on marketing cache than what's actually in the bottle. I have had $200 bottles I would not give you a bowl of warm spit for, and $20 bottles that rocked me backward. This inability to know what the experience will be like, or to somehow be able to relate it to a price point, means that millions of buyers are simply taking a chance every time they buy a bottle of wine.

To me that is the core problem. If I am young and on a limited budget, I am going to buy something predictable. Not some bottle of stuff that has a dozen wires and knobs attached to it that all have to line up just right to make it taste good. That is one place the much-disparaged Gallos had their finger on the market. If you bought Boone's Farm or Bartles and Jaymes (which I drank quite a bit of back then), by golly, you KNEW what was going to come from that bottle.

This issue of predictability is the 1,000-pound gorilla the wine industry just doesn't want to touch, because it smacks of "production wines," and that is a very, very bad term in wine circles because it takes away all that marketing ability to ratchet up prices. Well, what comes around goes around, or as my mother used to say, you made your bed, now you get to lie in it!

 
Try Vivinio on your phone. Take a picture of the label using the app, and it looks up consumer ratings. I find that anything rated at least 3.6 / 5 is good, and have found real gems. I rarely pay more than $15 USD for a bottle.
I tried it this weekend at a wine bar and it was very helpful. The descriptions were helpful but the “taste characteristics” with the little slider bars was really nice.
 
To me, the problem with wine, the way the industry is now structured, is that you cannot – for the life of me – KNOW what the hell you are getting until you open and taste it.
Jim, you hit that nail SQUARELY on the head!

Early in my IT career, I rode the bleeding edge of technology. If there was something new, I was on it. This was great, as it was exciting and I got PAID to do it!

Fast forward a decade, I was older, more experienced, and had less enthusiasm. I adopted that Dilbert mantra: "Change is good. YOU got first."

That's now me on all fronts. Let someone else bleed. I don't buy anything new -- I let others try it and report on it first.

Same with wine. I use online ratings and Vivinio on my phone to clue me in on the good ones. Or Laithwaite -- the least wine I've gotten from them has been "good". Most are above average at a good price.
 
I don't know about anyone else but I did not develop a taste for wine, or liquors like gin, until my 40s. Same for my wife. Just was not on my radar. Is it just an age related taste profile?
 
I don't know about anyone else but I did not develop a taste for wine, or liquors like gin, until my 40s. Same for my wife. Just was not on my radar. Is it just an age related taste profile?
There is a lot of variance -- I'm on the far end of the scale. Growing up, my dad drank mostly gin and my mom blended whiskey, and some beer. Neither were big drinkers, 1 or 2 and they were done. Wine? My dad didn't like "sour wine" and port was too sweet, so he'd buy a bottle each of Gallo Burgundy and a Gallo Port, and mix them 50/50. I was 17 when I developed a taste for dry reds.

My sons (now mid-20's) grew up helping me make wine. Both developed a taste for dry reds early, probably through exposure.

One thing to consider is that our taste buds deteriorate as we age, so strong flavors that are disliked when young may taste better as we get older. In that respect, it makes sense that for some there is an age related reason for developing a taste later in life.
 
Jim, you hit that nail SQUARELY on the head!

Early in my IT career, I rode the bleeding edge of technology. If there was something new, I was on it. This was great, as it was exciting and I got PAID to do it!

Fast forward a decade, I was older, more experienced, and had less enthusiasm. I adopted that Dilbert mantra: "Change is good. YOU got first."

That's now me on all fronts. Let someone else bleed. I don't buy anything new -- I let others try it and report on it first.

Same with wine. I use online ratings and Vivinio on my phone to clue me in on the good ones. Or Laithwaite -- the least wine I've gotten from them has been "good". Most are above average at a good price.

The only trouble I've had with drinker reviews from Vivino, etc., is that what is popular is not always what is good. I only wish I had similar results on Vivino as you have had. I have had a number of watery clunkers that rated 3.8 and above there, largely I think because the population of reviewers tends toward novices. I have better luck by finding expert reviewers who haven't let me down and then seeking wines rated well by those people.

But again, do I have to do that with beer or spirits? No. As a marketing problem for the wine industry, this remains the 900-pound gorilla in the room. If you are in a restaurant or looking at a bottle that says cabernet, what is actually inside the bottle can vary by huge degrees in bouquet, taste and finish. So the varietal is of little help, and then you turn to brand. Yet the offerings of a brand can vary widely by exact label name or vintage. Well gee – you still have price. The top shelf is always better, right? You would think a $50 bottle is far, far superior to a $20 bottle – but there again, you have absolutely no guide because quality ranges so widely across all prices. In end, you are left to try to judge the interplay of all these things and how they might affect the flavor that's in the bottle you hold.

Few of those are problems for beer or spirits. I'm not saying I know the solution, but I do know that as long as wine is a type of highly variable artisanal agricultural product, the marketing problem will remain. So, why do older people like wine so much? I think it's because they have the money and time to toss away learning what they like. Not so with younger folks, who can grab a 12-pack of beer and know what they have.
 
We don't go out to eat much these days but when we do (and there are many nice places with deep wine list in Santa fe. I always get tasked to pick the wine (imagine that). I have found that when in doubt I have really never been steered wrong by the Somm if they have one or really even the waiter. Just remember when eating out the markup on a cheap bottle can easily be 3-4X the cost of the bottle but pick a more expensive wine in the list and sometimes that price in not all that much more than what you could purchase it for in the store making it in reality the much better deal and much better wine that you will be happy with in the end and not feel like you got "ripped off" with when you come time to pay the bill.
 
I find it interesting that so many of us started drinking wine around age 40. Makes me think it's more complicated than just marketing. Might be a good socio-economic psycho-babble study.

I might be an anomaly but I started drinking wine when I got my under graduate degree and got my 1st real full time job so ~22. Even back then I was wowed by the way wine took food to a whole new level and vice versa. Interestingly my parents did not drink (except at the holidays or social occasions) which were few and far between. When we had dinner parties (once I got married) with friends or my wife's family there was always wine at the dinner table when we had get togethers. It took me a while to graduate from Riunite to more drier things but it happened slowly but surely in just a few years time.
 
Beer and spirits, for the most part, are made like Coca-Cola: the flavor is consistent from batch to batch. The people who create them make sure that this is true because the consumer that buys the product because demands that the next bottle will taste like the last bottle. Jack, Jim, Bacardi, and whatever brew that is sold in thirty packs will taste the same as the last. It's a lot easier with grain based beverages. Grains tend to be consistent (I believe, Rice_Guy or other folks with more food experience please correct me on this) from year to year. That simplifies making consistent product.

The exception to this is for single malts, special releases of other spirits, and boutique brews. Most people don't start out drinking single malts. Or pricey lambics. They start with the booze in the well and the cheapest beer by the case. Eventually some will start to really taste what they're drinking and demand better.

Reality is that most people drink whatever is cheap and/or whatever is advertised the most.

The big winemakers do the same thing when they blend for their "Chateau Cashflow." Paul Masson sold no wine before it's time, and it was the same every time. Gallo Hearty Burgundy, box wine, and others that are marketed to the masses are (relatively) consistent from batch to batch.

Wine grapes are variable from year to year. The big guys have the luxury to blend to a taste standard because they have the raw materials to do it. Smaller wineries do not. They are subject to the weather and what kind of grapes they can buy on contract. Therefore their products are going to vary from year to year. Which is okay for wine drinkers. We expect it.

The answer, in my never humble opinion, is found at the box wine level. Advertising, not just on the holidays, is key. It will take a gargantuan effort to turn people from light beer to wine drinkers.
 

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