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How the Wine Industry Is Fighting Back Against Bad Press

Lately, wine headlines have been a bummer. Sales are down across the industry. Climate change has been ravaging vineyards. And wine consumption, according to the media, is in its flop era.

Some headlines are justified. As the industry stabilizes after a global pandemic, volume sales are down. Fires, frost, droughts and floods are plaguing the world’s wine regions.

A new generation is turning 21 and turning away from wine (and drinking, in general). Wine’s health halo is all but lost, as new reports question its health benefits. As a result, a neo-prohibitionist movement is ringing the alarm on the potential consequences of every single glass.

In a clickbait economy, the media has been quick to sensationalize all of the above. “Wine is hurting,” says The Drinks Business. “The good times are over,” according to Fortune. “If you think that glass of wine is good for you, it’s time to reconsider,” blasts CNN.

To combat the bad press, growing regions, journalists and industry members have been launching campaigns to stabilize wine’s souring reputation.

The Cin-Cin Cheerleaders

Earlier this year, the gluttony of grim headlines had veteran writer Karen McNeil considering how she could help right the industry. “She couldn’t sit there and take this passively,” says Kimberly Charles. “She was going to write an article but she said, that’s not enough—I need to do something more proactive.”

So, McNeil teamed up with Charles and Gino Colangelo (founder of wine and spirits PR powerhouse Colangelo & Partners), to start Come Over October, a movement to promote the positive attributes of wine.

“We have such a culture of eating on the run, or in front of the TV—we want to bring back the ritual of having conversations with family and friends over dinner and a glass of wine,” says Charles. “We want to show off the history and context of wine, and how it’s been woven through time—more of the magic of wine.”

Three weeks into the campaign and the response has been overwhelming. “And reassuring,” says Charles.

Around 1,000 brick-and-mortar retail locations—including Total Wine and Kroger—have adopted the campaign, with an estimated reach of one million customers. The #ComeOverOctober hashtag has racked up thousands of posts. An additional four million viewers have been reached through social media.

“It feels like we’ve woken up a giant,” Charles continues. “We thought it would be a U.S.-centric campaign, but we've had eight different global regions join as well. We’re hearing from small wineries and larger conglomerates and regions around the world. What we’re doing is echoing everywhere.”

Other campaigns have launched with similar intentions: to welcome wine lovers back into the fold.

Napa Valley Vintners, a regional trade organization representing the valley’s 500-plus wineries, is prompting drinkers to share their “Why Wine” story—the moment, relationship or reasons that sparked their interest in wine.

Non-profit industry organization Wine Market Council’s current “Wine Is…” campaign has a similar approach of romanticizing wine. The campaign asks drinkers to share the why behind their glass on social media: “Wine is…summer nights. Wine is….girl’s night out.”

Kickstarting Comeback Campaigns

Washington State’s wine industry has had a tumultuous few years, thanks to-the current industry headwinds coupled with the sale of Ste. Michelle Wine Estates (the largest winery in the Pacific Northwest) and the winery’s announcement that it would purchase 40% less fruit from growers over the next five years.

So, they launched a comeback campaign. The Washington State Wine Commission brought on a national agency to help with public representation. They’re deploying winemakers to key markets to make sure the state’s wines are top of mind. They’re hosting masterclasses in foreign markets and flying out sommeliers, media members and distributors—60 in September alone—to help spread the gospel of Washington wine.

“When the sales started slumping we said, we need to get our wineries out on the road—back in our target markets,” says Kristina Kelley, the commissions’ executive director. “It’s an opportunity to get people to understand the diversity within our state and recognize what makes Washington such a special place to grow grapes and make wine.”

“We need to stay top of mind,” she continues. “We’re not saying the tide has turned and Washington is back. We’re just trying to make sure we have the right programs in place, we’re getting our education out, and we’re speaking to the right people. We’re going back to the basics. It’s simple, but it’s what we need to be doing.”

Now, they’re seeing declines, but it’s not in the double digits anymore. “Things are stabilizing,” says Kelley. “We’re hopefully optimistic.”

The Young People Problem

Steven McDonald, a Master Sommelier who runs the award-winning wine program at Pappas Bros. Steakhouse, found the pandemic (alongside the other current wine industry headwinds) shifted the industry in a major way.

“During Covid, everybody drank a lot,” says McDonald. “It’s almost like they went through this time warp—many got seven or eight years worth of drinking experience in the space of a year and a half.”

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. He’s noticed the youngest drinkers—the ones who would normally be ordering the cheapest glass of wine on the menu—are now surprisingly seasoned. “They’re asking for a cool Chianti Classico, Barolo or Northern Rhône.”

While reports have painted the Gen Z cohort as wine’s antiheroes, many pros are finding the headlines are greatly exaggerated. McDonald is watching a younger crowd show up to Pappas Bros.’ walk-around tastings and ordering across the more exploratory pages of his list.

“We’ve made a huge effort to kind of reach the younger, more curious guest,” he says. “There’s a lot to engage with out in the world, that we get to be the place that they explore.”

“Travel is a huge part of it,” McDonald says. “Young folks are so excited to explore. That’s where they're spending a lot of their money. And that’s where most of our wine connections are coming from, a young person who was just in Florence or Paris. And they’re engaging with movies, TV shows and documentaries—our Sicily section is huge right now because of White Lotus.”

Other movements are also targeting Gen Z drinkers. The Wine Institute’s Cultivating Togetherness campaign is aimed at industry members and shows off how the wine sector can connect with young drinkers.

Informed by consumer research conducted by Wine Institute, “it was developed as a means to quickly and effectively share the thinking and objectives of the strategy within the broader wine community,” says Honore Comfort, the Institute's VP of international marketing. The campaign will include a platform and tool kit for wineries and wine regions to use in their communications efforts.

Washington Wine is also pivoting efforts to draw in drinkers who haven’t been indoctrinated into wine. Kelley says, “We asked ourselves: what are we actively doing to attract that younger generation? Sustainability is a large part of Zillennials’ purchasing decisions. So, let’s push that message.”

Winning Gen Z over can be fruitful. According to beverage industry data provider IWSR, Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) are more likely to meet the top-end of their spend per bottle at a higher level than their older counterparts. Bevtrac data corroborates this—the average highest spend on a bottle over the past six months for the Millennial cohort was $55. Comparatively, Gen X spent $44 a bottle and Boomers, $44.

Course Correction

While headlines are grim, they're painting just one side of the story. To understand the full impact of what’s going on, context is key.

Consider that in 1998, the New York Times stated that young people—21 to 29 at the time—were turning away from wine. Now, that same cohort, Gen X, represents a third of all wine spend. In 2016 a similar headline appeared in the New York Post. “Millennials are ruining the American wine industry” it claimed. They now represent fifth of all wine spend.

While volume sales are down in the wine sector—2% according to Nielsen (September 24) —premiumization is up. The super-premium and ultra-premium segments continue to outperform other categories. People are drinking less, yes, but they’re drinking better and spending more per bottle.

“I think it’s important to acknowledge shifts are always happening in the wine marketplace,” explains Brian Rosen, founder of InvestBev. “I believe the current market adjustments are temporary and will eventually stabilize at a sustainable level. While the headlines may seem alarming, this is part of the natural evolution of the industry, and the wine sector has proven resilient through many cycles of change, so I’m not too concerned.”

That’s not to say a storm isn’t raging in the industry. It is, and the wine industry needs to take action to survive.

Silicon Valley Bank’s Rob McMillan recently underlined this. “For at least a decade, I've been told that we just need to wait until younger consumers mature, and at that point, they will adopt wine like the boomers did before. That strategy has yet to correct declining demand….there are better strategies than waiting.”

In a report from Wine Business and Gomberg Fredrikson, editor Jon Moramarco wrote “the beverage alcohol industry is losing the public relations war right now. We need to get consumers to think better about wine, we need to get retailers and restaurants pumped up to sell more wine … There is no single way of doing it, and it’s going to take a collective effort. Positive messaging is needed to win hearts and not just palates to the category.”


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