Shifting demographics, changing values and declining engagement suggest wine’s challenges may be structural rather than cyclical.
Jamie Goode wants you to know wine is still cool. In his recent column for Winemag, the London-based wine writer acknowledges the industry’s struggles but argues we’re just in a “temporary sticky patch.” Visit any natural wine fair, he observes, and you’ll find it packed with young people. The problem, in his view, isn’t wine – it’s economics.
I’d like that to be true. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Fine wine prices fell 11% across major regions in 2024. The broader wine market saw volumes drop 5% that same year, with wine suffering the steepest declines across all alcohol categories.³ Between 2021 and 2024, the number of wine drinkers in key global markets fell by five million people, despite adult populations growing.⁴ In the US alone, the population increased by 9.5 million since 2022. Monthly wine drinkers? Up just 500,000.⁵
The cultural shift
Goode attributes wine’s troubles to “rising costs at both ends of the market” and “genuine erosion of purchasing power” – temporary economic headwinds, in other words. But this explanation doesn’t account for what’s happening culturally. Gen Z is re-engaging with alcohol – participation rates jumped from 46% to 70% in the US between 2023 and 2025, and in the UK, up from 60% to 70%. They’re just not choosing wine. They want spirits, hard seltzers, and ready-to-drink cocktails.⁷ When they do buy wine, it’s sweet, sparkling, or both.
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