A key finding from the Wine Opinions report – American Wine Generations – has been questioned on social media but the findings are verifiable.
On Twitter, having looked at the graphic posted below, one tweeter opined, “Do you think that 75% of Millennials have been to wineries?” And another chimed in, “This is a preposterous statement and can be dismantled from many angles.”
But the facts speak for themselves. What those tweeters neglected was that winery visitation measured in a recent Wine Opinions consumer survey was from a survey limited only to High Frequency wine drinkers (those who, on average, drink wine either daily or several times a week). Only one in three U.S. wine consumers is a High frequency wine drinker, but they account for about 85% of all the wine purchased. In short, they are the people who truly love wine; they are involved in wine and interested in learning and discovering more.
So that fact that among these wine drinkers, 75% of the Millennials in this group report that they have visited at least one winery in the past year is rather unremarkable. Greater percentages of High Frequency wine drinkers who are Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have visited at least one winery in the past year (77% and 78% respectively) so this bit of data should come as no shock to anyone.
Further, Millennials make up a significantly smaller proportion of High Frequency wine drinkers than Baby Boomers (38% of all High Frequency wine drinkers are Baby Boomers, while 30% are Millennials). So, we are talking about a much smaller group of Millennials than Baby Boomers.
Anyone looking dispassionately at the facts will agree that the 79 million U.S. Millennials are of critical importance to the wine industry and its future. And there are, in fact, more wine-drinking Millennials today than there are Baby Boomers. We should rejoice in the fact that (like older generations) wine has a special appeal to a good many Millennials, and this includes winery visitation.
