Despite all the handwringing of late that millennials ruined wine, they’ve now surpassed baby boomers as America’s largest wine-drinking generation. And in a plot twist that has surely surprised producers of ready-to-drink cocktails, spiked seltzer, and cannabis drinks, Gen Z is enjoying wine more frequently as well. The Wine Market Council’s 2025 US Wine Consumer Benchmark Segmentation Survey shows that 31 percent of U.S. wine drinkers are now millennials, while baby boomers’ share has dropped to 26 percent, a significant decline from 32 percent in 2023. Yet, as millennials enter life stages traditionally associated with higher spending on alcohol, their values and priorities differ substantially from previous generations. As difficult as selling wine has become in the past several years, this generational shift provides unique opportunities for wine producers to attract younger consumers to their brands with a variety of tactics. “A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is unlikely to be effective,” says Wine Market Council president..
