| For some years the economy has been on shifting sands regarding what’s affordable and what’s no longer within reach – even for those with a comfortable income.
Owning property used to be a sign of success and stability, but house prices are increasingly beyond the younger generation’s wallets. Those with expendable incomes aren’t sinking their money into mortgages as their parents and grandparents might have, but are treating themselves to less costly, one-off experiences instead.
You need only look at social media to see how the well-off demonstrate their wealth with travel and ‘once in a lifetime’ memory-building moments. The global consultant McKinsey found that though Gen Z (those born between the mid-1990s and 2012) love a bargain they are more likely to spend on luxury items that are unique and tailored to their interests. Similarly, research analysts Wine Intelligence reported that 18–34-year-olds are among the highest UK spenders per bottle on wine. They may not be able to buy that four-bed townhouse, but they can dine out at the most fabulous places and indulge themselves with the best wine available.
Wine is accessible now, at all levels, all styles and myriad packaging from bottles to cans to bag-in-boxes. At the same time, learning about wine has never been so approachable – and that is in part thanks to the pandemic.
Lockdown drove the traditional wine industry online. The public was trapped at home and looking for entertainment, and the wine world was ideally placed to provide it. Boredom was relieved by online wine tastings; meals were revived by a more premium bottle of wine. No longer having to factor in taxis, service charges or childcare, we found we had an extra bit of spending money to treat ourselves at the table.
Suddenly, your wine background – whether you grew up in a wine-drinking household or not – didn’t matter. Being online can mean anonymity, so those who felt intimidated by traditional wine events had the freedom to join the conversation without feeling judged. For the first time there was a move towards diversity in wine as people from different cultures, genders, races and socio-economic backgrounds began to taste, read and buy more. In 2021, a year after the first lockdown, WSET (the Wine & Spirit Education Trust) reported a record 12 percent increase in applications to study wine, with regions such as Asia Pacific growing by four percent – and representing a third of WSET’s total business. In April 2022 Deloitte US reported BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of colour) consumers had become one of the fastest-growing groups buying alcohol, and one of the only markets to buy more wine than beer in the US.
This side of the Atlantic, the British Beer and Pub Association found that between March 2020 and October 2021 wine tax receipts increased by £583m to £7.7 billion and wine overtook beer as the nation’s alcoholic beverage of choice. People had spent more on wines at home during the pandemic – and many got a taste for it.
Following on from this, there has been a drive for quality over quantity and a significant shift in those collecting, investing and drinking fine wine. Sotheby’s reports that the age of the average bidder has shifted from 65-plus to 40 in the last few years, with far more women taking part in auctions (an increase of up to 22 percent in some cases. In its 2021 report, London fine wine merchant BI revealed that investors under the age of 25 were spending up to £20,000 a year on wine, with seven per cent spending between £50,000 and £500,000.
The most expensive fine wines may always be the privilege of the extremely wealthy, but at most budget levels people see wine as an affordable luxury, something simultaneously everyday and a little bit special. However, whereas older generations may have equated good wine with elegance, sophistication and status, the bright young wine drinkers of today are more interested in terms such as ‘authentic’ and ‘sustainable’.
They want to know the story behind the wine, who’s behind it and how they offset their carbon footprint. Food Insight (the information arm of the International Food Information Council (IFIC)), reported last year, that for the perceived good of both planet and personal health, nearly half of Gen Z is more likely to purchase a wine labelled ‘natural’. Red wine may be a casualty of this trend: as more convert to vegetarianism and veganism, white wine is gaining in popularity over ‘meaty’ reds.
The modern wine drinker is connected to a global knowledge base. Consumers are more likely than ever to delve into producers’ social media and peer reviews before buying. Producers who tell their story in an engaging way attract loyal followers. It may sound like a contradiction in the digital age, but this is about personal, and personalized, experiences. Wine consumers, collectors and investors are changing: we just have to see if the wine industry can keep up. |
