Does Gen-Z not like wine?

Wine consumption in Europe is declining year after year. In Italy, between 2019 and 2023, sales in large-scale retail dropped by almost 10 percentage points. In France, on the other hand, it’s estimated that red wine – the type most affected by the sector’s crisis – is consumed 90 percent less than in the 1970s. Younger generations in particular tend to prefer white or rosé wines – both rediscovered as “intellectual” products, riding the wave of the natural wine movement. Red wine is also penalized by a new way of experiencing food: for example, people approach restaurants with more intentionality. As chef Tommaso Melilli wrote in his book Cucina Aperta, for more and more people, sitting down in a certain kind of restaurant is a bit like going to the theater. Thanks largely to social media, fine dining has become a form of entertainment – which at the same time has made it more “democratic” and less elitist. It’s also increasingly common to see people dining alone at restaurants. In this context, many people – rather than eating and drinking in a mediocre restaurant – prefer to go to a wine bar with kitchen and order a few small dishes accompanied by one or more glasses, while restaurants (especially refined ones) are increasingly chosen for special occasions. This is also part of the reason for the decline in red wine consumption, in favor of wines that are considered “more drinkable” – as the industry says, referring to wines that are less demanding.

With the increase in tourist flows, the food scene in several major cities – Italian and otherwise, like Milan, Rome, Barcelona, or Paris, among many – has become much more diverse and lively. Here, the wine bar with kitchen format is very popular, and it’s likely that the recent decline in table wine is also partly due to the opening of many wine bars, which have inevitably absorbed part of consumer demand. This is one of the most talked-about topics in the food and wine world, which in recent years has also been grappling with another trend: the growing reluctance among young people to drink alcohol. The phenomenon is being fueled by the popularity of the movement known as “sober curious”. The trend, which began in the U.S. in the late 2010s and later spread throughout the West, involves cutting out alcohol to improve physical and mental well-being. For this reason, some companies are exploring new opportunities, such as producing wines with low or no alcohol content. Unsurprisingly, the alcohol-free beverage market has grown exponentially in recent years, driven by increasing demand.

Why People Are Drinking Less Wine

The fact remains that, looking at the data, the number of people who drink is increasing. What’s decreasing is the amount of wine consumed on average. Today, in essence, wine is mostly consumed only on occasional – but increasingly socially codified – moments. There are many reasons behind this. First, the phenomenon has to do with the rising prices of bottles, driven by post-pandemic inflation, which has made the raw materials needed for production more expensive. Then there’s the impact of climate change: by raising the alcohol content of wines, global warming has made many wines – particularly reds – too intense for large segments of the public, who have thus started drinking less alcohol or switching to other products, such as whites. The climate crisis has also strained some major wine-producing countries, including France and Italy – while favoring territories with cooler climates. The decline in imports from China has further hurt the Western market. Before the 1980s, wine – especially red wine – was seen almost as a food item, and for that reason it was much more common on family and restaurant tables. Today, however, wine consumption is no longer taken for granted. Despite the decrease in sales volume, for some producers this isn’t necessarily a bad thing: it could be an opportunity to revitalize the industry, encouraging a more informal and unconventional approach to wine consumption.