Boomers, Millennials Diverge on Alcohol Choices

gyrations here. We know we needed to wrap up with a segment on wine, and so with us right now is Josh Green, editor in chief for Wine in Spirits Magazine, here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. And yes we're gonna sample someone in a moment. But Josh, first of all, how are you great to be here? I'm doing very well. It's a spring day outside, That's what. It's beautiful. It feels really good. It feels really actually going running after this,

but still I'm here for the one. You can always have a little sip, that's true. Well, extra springing your step, um, Big trends and wines last year. Talk to us a little bit about this past year and how this year is shaping up. When it comes to the wine industry. Well, everyone was very nervous about the pandemic from the industry's point of view, because everyone closed their tasting rooms, but deep directed consumer did super super well. And um, so

there's this phenomenon everyone calls it premium. Yeah, a lot of people bought more wine, and so um, premium wines. Premiumatization is increasing at a pretty stiff clip. So um, it means that people are buying up. And what's unfortunate, because the industry relies on it, is that things under fifteen dollars are sales are are diminishing, but things above

fifteen are actually on the increase. So um. The Silicon Value Bank does their annual report every year, and um, it created a lot of buzz in the industry this year because there was there was a number of Um. There were a number of trends that were scary for the industry, including this issue of baby boomers continuing to drink a lot of wine and millennials continuing not to drink a lot of wine. All right, millennial, what's wrong? So that are you a millennial? Actually I know I

am a millennial. I will say the pandemic. You bought more wine. I drank a lot more wine because I was with my parents for six months, so I got really into white wine. For example, it used to be just read only, but my mom loves white wine. Tell me about these millennials who are not made well, they are often choosing to drink spirits. Um. So the Baby Boom generation came to wine really in the early nineties when sixty Minutes produced this segment on how red wine

was good for your health. Now that yeah, now that's been questioned, and um, since it's been questioned. It also is it a time when younger people who are nesting getting married and that's when they usually start drinking wine, are not turning to wine as much, So they'll go out to a restaurant and the loader cocktails and cocktails are booming and spirits are booming. So for that generation, they are choosing either not to drink alcohol or to

drink alcohol other than wine. That is so interesting. Actually that does mirror my own life because my husband, for example, he loves to cook. He also loves to make cocktails. So I don't know, but for me, the pie is just getting bigger. It's not necessarily all of the above, So it's not really dire. I mean there is there, There is a continuing um there. People are continuing to drink wine. It's just that the growth is in the above fifteen. So nine that was revenue was up nine

that in that segment of the industry. It's interesting because I do feel like we you know, we do a lot of wine segments. To be quite honest, on Bloomberg Business Weekend, I do feel like we often have people who you know, come on and say, like, there's a range of money you can spend on wines, but there's a lot of great wines out there under twenty dollars or under You don't the whole concept in this idea of you don't have to spend a ton of a ton of money to get a great bottle of wine.

Well that's absolutely true. And in fact, the boomers who are older in their sixties are buying more wine by volume but at a lower price, and the younger people are actually buying higher priced wines to their sort of wine curious. They're experimenting, they're looking at things that they don't know about and trying them, and so they're willing to spend more on on a wine for an occasion, but they're not drinking as much every day. Okay, that's

really interesting. Do you do it? I mean, well, it does feel when it comes to different price points, like buying something fifteen dollars, I just probably don't do it. I probably buy up. And for it is more occasion based, it feels like it's not just like, oh, it's to sail drink wine like then I might actually make a gin and tonic at home. But I don't think I speak for an entire generation, So I mean, I am

curious though when I think about my peers. I know that mocktails have seemingly become a really big trend, and you were talking about how there's this gravitation towards cocktails, But what are you seeing when it comes to non alcoholic drinks. We see a lot of growth in that area, and we as a magazine don't pay a whole lot

of attention to that. Um, but there is a lot of activity because because we're wine in spirits and we don't really cover non alcoholic stuff, but there's a lot of activity even among wineries to produce lower alcohol wines and no alcohol wines and UM. And there's also you know, in terms of dry January, curious, sober, sober, curious people there, there's those are terms I here all the time now and you never heard them. Super curious. Yeah, it's a

whole trend on TikTok. Well, it's interesting. Timstnavik, who's my normal co host, you're my abnormal kidding, but he drinks non alcoholic beer. Um, and he's a millennial. Like to make fun of him, but I feel like that's not okay, I can't. In fact, there's some really good non alcoholic beers out there, and now some really good, some really good products made from wine that are not alcoholic that I have friends who are making some that are delicious.

All right, So what's innovation in the wine industry today? I would say that the innovation is really in farming because you have this huge challenge. One of the one of the huge challenges to the industry is climate change, and so people have to develop farming tools and farming techniques that will sustain them through these really aggressive extremes

of weather. And so people are, you know, in certain areas where there's a lot of hail, people are finding ways of netting that is not driving them out of business. So netting the vines to protect the grapes. Um where there is where there have been fire fire forest fires, it's been really devastating. I just I was I'm headed down to Chile next month, to the south where I love the wines from the far south, where these very ancient vineyards, year old vieyards, and they've been wiped out

by forest fires in the last week. So people need to find tools to deal with protecting their vines and to deal with protecting them from heat. Um, you have a lot of people. I guess the biggest trend farming wise is that even in places like Burgundy, you're seeing a classification that was based on where the snow first melted in the spring, and now the classification is based on where the coolest areas are, so you don't get sunburned on your grapes, so you don't you want a

northern exposure suddenly rather than southern exposure. It's so funny because I think Business Week has done some reporting to that, just saying because of climate change, Okay, so maybe you can't really grow here, but in this area where it maybe used to be too warm, it's a little cooler. Where it was too cool like warmer, so things are kind of shifting around the world a little bit. And then in those in those areas where you had moisture in the soil and that wasn't good for the vines,

suddenly against drought, it's saving the vines. So all these all these places that were once secondary are now becoming primary. And it doesn't necessarily mean that the great vineyards are bad now, but the great vineage are challenged in a way they've never been challenged before. So you can't rely on the fact that the vineyard is great. You have to know that the producer is really actively farming their vines to protect them from the grapes from the sun,

to protect the vines from drought. You know that it's a big deal. Now affects the advantage. So we only have like a minute left, but I am curious. Then we're gonna open up some bottles exactly. I really want to get to that. But you know, innovation when comes it comes to farming. But when we talk about, you know, the decrease consumption among millennials when it comes to wine. Are are wine makers trying to innovate around that? Are they trying to reach out to those millennials. I think

that there will be. I believe that there will be a necessary shift in the way that wines are priced. Um, because when I was growing up, I'm an old guy now, but when I was growing up, I could buy Roumier for a bottle at the store. Now, that same bottle that I bought eight hundred dollars. The people that I'm serious gaggeration, um, and the people that are coming into the industry now, they don't get to taste those wines and they don't get the kind of excitement around the one.

I mean, we're showing you two really beautiful wines, but they're out of the budget of most people. So Um, the industries, I think the people who are going to be most successful in the next few years are the people who are going to be innovating on creating exciting wines. Not commercial winds, but exciting wines. It's wines that will excite people at a price point that they can afford. Now that makes so much sense. Um, So we're gonna

open up. First of all, Um, Josh, you brought some wine for us to sample, and some champagne actually for us to sample. So we're gonna open up. Tell us about this bottle that we're gonna that Stephen actually, who's in studio with us, is going to open up for us. So Steven's opening. Steven's opening the addition to for three of Rotor collection too for three, and what this is

is a completely new kind of wine from Rotor. So the two we're doing this big event next week and the two champagne producers pouring at the event are both pretty significant houses. They put vineyards first, that's Bowling j and Ludi Roder. And what Ludi Roder did was they their Brute Premier wine, which was their UM, their basic non vintage brute wine. They transitioned UM a year ago over to this collection wine. So, um, what this is

that one's for you? It is first of all, can I just say, I don't know if you can see this all right, it's generous, it's well, it's generous, and it's it's gorgeous like the color that the bubbles. So this is the two eighteen vintage. It's about eighteen vintage. And then Jean Jean Baptiste Lacaillon, who's the winemaker and the viticulturist there, he started what he calls a perpetual reserve in two thousand twelve, so he started taking wines

and putting them away. So he's got two eighteen vintage from his growers and they're consulting with all their growers. Everything else that they make is from their own vineyards, but this wine is from growers, including some of their own vineyards, but from growers, and then they have this perpetual reserve what they add to each year, so there's

a consistency. So there's a consistency, and that they blended into this and then they have some wine from oak aged reserves and they blend it all together and they make this wine. And it's completely a different style of wine from what group Premier used to be Cheers, same wine, but it's a Champagne to Champagne. But Champagne is a wine. I was a little confused about that. Is it if I call it Champagne not at all because from it's from Champagne, but it's a wine from Champagne. They also

make still wines in Champagne. You know what, go ahead, no finish. It makes still ones in Champagne, and that makes sparking onneagin. You know what's really fun is I feel like champagne. At least for me growing up, it was holidays and celebrations. But you go now to a bar. I went to a work event and that was the drink that they were initially kind of having everybody drink, and it's it's just you go out and people are like, well, let me have a glass of champagne. A lot of

people a lot of wine to actors at restaurants. We're interving a bunch of them right now for a project we work on for our next shoe, And I was just interesting interviewing Natalie McDade at Craft yesterday talking about what's going on to craft, and she said one of the things she's seeing is that people are drinking champagne as a wine for dinner for the first time in

her career. That they're not just waiting to have a celebration, they're having it at dinner, which is something that I love to hear that she loves to see and that many people in the industry have been waiting to happen. Yeah, I see it all the time. I've done it. Yeah. Well, maybe this is just antec data, but to the point that it used to be, it still is a celebration drink. I feel like I have noticed people order prosecco when

they're just like casually out for dinner. Maybe champagne feels a little bit too much, too serious or you know, too much of a celebration. Prosecco seems to have taken on this role is like this is more every day. Yep. There there's very commercial prosecco and there's also really absolutely delicious, very special prosecco, very carefully growing prosecco. So there's some really great wines in that category. And that's come up

a lot, and I think that it's become extreme. It's really blown away a lot of the other categories of sparkling wine other than champagne. Champagne is continuing to boom, and prosecco was really booming. But we what we did was um Stephen Stephen brought brought some food that's gonna be paired with this um, with this wine. At the event, we'll tell us about this. So this is Pizza Bianca, which is UM. Robin Wright is the sammier at the wine director at Chisiama Chiamo in UM Manhattan, West UM.

It's a Union Square hospitality group restaurant and yeah, and so she said that her favorite thing with this dish is champagne and sparkling wine. So we have them right next to a prosecco Domi prosecco and right next to Um rotor or State Rotor, Rotor, Louis Rotor, Champagne and um. So we thought we'd bring it over. We were bringing the rotor. We thought we'd bring some some that we weren't gonna let Katie eat until she had She's not

going to eat on air. Well, I'm going to eat a second, but I want to get to the second one because we've got about almost three minutes left here. So tell us about you brought us another um a wine here red, Yes, a red wine. So this is like this is Les Marchiole so Tincia. Merrily Um has this estate in Bulgary, which is on the coast of

Italy and the coast of Tuscany. And she and her her husband who passed away I think in the early two thousands, Um he and she developed this estate and really found that Cabernet franc performed so well in this part of Tuscany. So this is Cabernet franc. It is a very I mean to me, this is one of the great wines of Italy. Um, it's a very beautiful want to make everybody know that we really do have

the one here. This is true. It's a very elegant wine, very delicate red wine with a lot of richness underneath. So she's a very beautiful, delicate woman with a lot of underneath. My Adorgan, she's she's amazing and um and she's you know, after her husband, after her husband passed, she really took it on herself to make this her project completely and the wine has only ever gotten better and better and better. And she she's one of the great producers in Italy. Now, I just love what's going

out we've had. What were you to say? No, I just I want to get into like the scoring, Like you mentioned that it scores well in Tuscany. What what actually comprises how a wine scores. What's the sort of criteria there? It really depends on who's scoring it. Um. For us, a lot of it has to do with our immediate reaction to the wine and what we what our expectations are for the wine. Really gentle, Yes, it's

gentle and beautiful. Yeah, but it's full you were talking I just want I just wann't taste it before well and only got like forty seconds lefter tell us about this event and six pm at Metropolitan Pavilion, which is

on eight Street west of Sixth Avenue. This is our top one hund wines of the year, which we scored the wineries of the year, So these are the wineries that got the highest scores and the most highest scores, and so they're gonna be wineries like um Biggest Sicilia will be there, which is probably the greatest estate in Spain. Um Corson and Diamond Creek will be there from Napa Valley.

This is incredible. They're amazing wines here, like wines you won't be able to taste virtually anywhere else in your life. And it's a very reasonable ticket to get in. So we're actually the tickets are going really fast right now. We're very excited about that because since the pandemic is is sort of on the wayne, people are out and about really excited about going out. I agree with you, everybody a wants to go do things. Um, Josh, we

have to run. What a sport. What a great way to wrap up our week, Josh, Green, editor in chief of Wine and Spirits magazine. Check out on Wednesday, f eight pm, Top one Tasting, This is Bloomberg