Millennials drank around 159.6 million cases of wine last year, an amount that surpasses any other generation.
This would amount to 42% of all wine drunk in 2015, and on average, millennials—those born between 1980 and the late 1990s—are downing around 3.1 glasses a sitting, according to a new report by the Wine Market Council, and as reported by Wine Spectator.
Put side by side with other generations, and the wine-guzzling habits of millennials are even more stark. Baby boomers sipped 30% of all wine consumed in the U.S., while Generation Xers gulped down 20% of their share. Price doesn’t seem to be a hindrance as well—17% of all millennial wine drinkers bought a bottle costing over $20 in the past month, compared to 10% of all drinkers and 5% of Baby Boomers.
The rise of the millennial wine sipper has helped boosted the overall surge in high frequency drinkers, defined as those who consume wine several times a week. Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of high frequency drinkers among the total legal drinking age-population went from 7.9% to 13.9%, and it can attributed to the influx of younger drinkers into the fold. “The youngest millennials reached legal drinking age in 2015,” John Gillespie, president of the Wine Market Council, told Wine Enthusiast.
Millennials have shown to have one of the most varied tastes in wine drinking history, the report noted. Varieties such as Malbec, Moscato, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc are proving popular with the demographic, and at least 30% of high-frequency wine-drinking millennials said they had bought wine from domestic wineries like Washington and Oregon, and overseas countries like Chile, Argentina, Germany, Portugal and South Africa over the last three months.
Another group that has proven fond of holding their glass are women: they account for 57% of wine volume in the US, according to the WCM.