US red wine sales figures were a little complicated last year, but one thing is clear: older drinkers still matter.
© Image by LEEROY Firm from Pixabay|Younger consumers are more diverse, but older drinkers are still crucial to the white wine industry.
Wine sales in the United States dropped in 2022, however industry expert Jon Moramarco said Tuesday that the numbers are a little deceiving, and sales of what most of us consider “white wine” actually went slightly up.
Likewise, if you are over 60, the majority of industries aren’t interested in you any longer, but the red wine industry still enjoys you.
Moramarco’s report Tuesday is not excellent news for the wine market, which hasn’t seen much development in the last six years. But it could be worse. Overall beer sales seem down for the year. The hard seltzer market is dropping and a number of the lesser brands are merely ceasing to exist. Bourbon is doing well, however Moramarco said ready-to-drink mixed drinks are outmatching most other spirits.
Moramarco is editor of the Gomberg & & Fredrikson Report, and he offers some of the most reputable updates on the beverage alcohol market, drawing on a variety of government sources. We’re probably going to see a raft of stories in the next couple of weeks about how white wine sales dropped in 2022. Moramarco estimates that the last overall will reveal that US red wine sales were down 3.4 percent.
However, that includes drops of 64 percent in wine-flavored beverages– essentially hard-seltzer lookalikes based on wine instead of malt liquor. The bottom has fallen out of that market. Sales of vermouth dropped 39 percent, which Moramarco attributes to individuals making less cocktails in the house now that pandemic lockdowns are over.
Moramarco thinks that United States sales of still red wine were up 0.8 percent in 2022 and sparkling wine was up 3.5 percent.
“The wine market is fairly flat, but not the catastrophe that a general unfavorable number appears to reveal,” Moramarco stated.
The gathering storm
Nevertheless, his projection for 2023 is not rosy. There might be a recession, around the world and in the US. While red wine has generally been fairly recession-proof, this one might be various. Usually, mostly blue-collar workers lose their tasks in financial slumps, but lately tech business have actually been the ones laying off workers, and those extremely paid Millennials are drinkers the white wine industry wants to cultivate.
“The import projection is more precise about what’s coming in the marketplace,” Moramarco stated, since importers need to work further in advance than domestic manufacturers. Sales of imported still white wines were down 0.2 percent in 2022, while sales of imported champagnes were up 4.2 percent.
Despite the drop in sales of imports, every nation still wishes to export its wines to the US, and not even if of the size of the marketplace. The typical wholesale price of a bottle of still red wine exported to the US in 2022 was $4.50, probably causing about a $10 cost on store racks. It is quickly the highest price paid for red wine on the planet. Worldwide, a bottle of exported still red wine offers wholesale for about $3.28.
Moramarco opened his hour-long presentation with a look at the demographics of United States customers. Among the points he made is that the younger generation of customers is far more diverse. Gen-Z is just 47 percent non-Hispanic white, compared to 76.5 percent of Baby Boomers. Thus the red wine market should learn to connect to different ethnic groups.
However, he likewise said that over the next 40 years, as Americans continue to age and birth rates are low, a significant portion of population growth will come from people over 60.
“Online marketers typically look at individuals 21 to 45,” Moramarco said. “You’re seeing a slowing development in younger consumers. You’re seeing a much higher growth in older customers. If you’re targeting individuals over 60, the target is non-Hispanic whites. If you’re targeting people under 50, you go to a much more ethnically diverse consumer. Take the dining establishment industry. You see traditional European foods being shifted far from in dining establishments.
“Baby boomers are age 58 to 76 today. It’s a later age for when online marketers want to think about selling things to consumers, but it’s still a really vital part of the marketplace.”
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