We all know that wine needs to attract a younger generation, but how young is too young?
At the beginning of this year, French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo ran a number of pieces on the influence of the French alcohol lobby on politics and particularly on the health and wellbeing of French citizens. It focused primarily on the country's major wine lobby, Vin et Société, which represents half a million wine and wine-adjacent businesses in the country.
Vin et Société has the ear of the French government and the country's premier, Emmanuel Macron, is "particularly attentive" – according to Charlie Hebdo – to the industry. This is relatively well known, with Macron claiming to drink two glasses of wine a day (one at lunch and one at dinner).
But it was Charlie Hebdo's focus on the way the wine industry is targeting the country's younger demographic that still leaves an awkward finish on the palate. It's also a point the wine industry beyond France – and especially a large number of our wine communicators – might do well to reflect upon.
The online piece, dated January 18 and titled "How the wine lobby is trying to regain the 'lost' youth", contained (if there was any doubt about the thrust of the piece) a huge image of a baby with its lips around the red foil neck of a Bordeaux bottle. The piece quickly reminds its readers that serving wine at the school canteen might have been a while ago (the practice was halted in 1956) but that the wine lobby's attempts to woo the youthful demographic has distinctly problematic overtones.
For many in the wine industry, this line of thought will be rightly dismissed as scaremongering, but there are elements of the article which bear serious thought. It is clear that wine consumption among the 18-24 year-old demographic is in the doldrums: the group accounts for only seven percent of all wine consumed in the country – a statistic mirrored in other countries.
Click HERE to read the full article.