The Wine Collector: Practical Wine Collecting Advice

This stat is from a new report published by the Wine Market Council of St. Helena. A core drinker is someone who consumes wine one or more times weekly. Core drinkers currently represent only 17.4% of the U.S. population. Wine lovers are drinking even more than before as this percentage has risen from 80% in 2000. If you reading this blog, my bet is you're a "core drinker."

A few other facts stood out to me from the report:

Per capita wine consumption in the U.S. is up 17% from 2.46 gallons in 2005 to 2.88 gallons in 2006. That's great but who uses gallons as a metric for wine consumption (unless it's plonk)? In 750ml bottle terms, that's an increase from only 12.4 bottles to 14.5 bottles per year. It seems low to me but it's enough to rank the U.S. third after Italy (12.8 gallons or 64.6 bottles) and France (12.5 gallons or 63.1 bottles).
30% of the wine sold in the U.S. is through the restaurant channel. Wine collectors should care because fine wine is often allocated to restaurants for market exposure purposes and is therefore not available to buy through retailers or directly (at more affordable prices).
20% of core drinkers bought wine via the Internet in 2006. In 2000, this was only 5% bought wine online. Wine is a consumer good so it shouldn't be surprising that consumers will use the Internet for more convenient and cost effective buying like they do with other items. Now if only state legislators would recognize market realities and revamp the direct shipping laws to accommodate market demand. At some point, consumers (aka voters) will make it happen with or without them.

This post was inspired by a February 8, 2007 article in The Napa Valley Register titled "Boomers, Millennials boost wine consumption".

The Wine Collector

92% of wine consumed by "core drinkers"