Millennials drink almost half of all wine consumed in the US

By Erin Smith

Published: 18 February, 2016

Millennials drank 42% of all wine consumed in the US last year according to new research presented by the Wine Market Council last month at their consumer research conference in New York.

That equates to 159.6m cases being drunk by millennials, which are defined as being aged 21 to 38 years old.

John Gillespie, the president of the Wine Market Council, presented his research findings that show high-frequency drinkers, which are people who consumer wine several times per week or more has increased from 7.6% of all legal-aged drinkers to 13% in 2015 of all legal-aged drinkers in the US.

Danny Brager, senior vice president of Nielsen Beverage Alcohol Practice Area, shared his research findings showing that sparkling wine growth in the US is outstripping still wines, but both are still growing. "Sparkling wine growth is leading in the off premise wine channel with an 11.7% dollar growth rate in 2015 while table wine is increasing at a 5.2% annual growth rate," according to the report (Source: Nielsen Total U.S. All Outlets). Further US consumers seem to trading up with double digit growth in wines over US$11.

According to the findings of Jennifer Paganos, the director of research for the Wine Market Council found that "wine is winning with women." Specifically, women account for 57% of wine volume in the U.S. (Source: Nielsen Spectra 2015).

The WMC report found that US millennial drinkers are more adventurous in their drinking habits and 30% of high-frequency drinkers were drinking wines outside of California, including regions like Chile, Argentina, Germany, Portugal, South Africa, Greece, Austria, New York, New Zealand and Spain in the past three months.

The Wine Market Council is a non-profit association of grape growers, wine producers, importers, wholesalers, retailers, and other affiliated wine businesses and organisations.

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