The Changing Face of Wine Drinkers
News flash: it’s not just snooty old rich people shoving their noses into glasses of chilled vino anymore. This past year, millennials became the largest demographic of wine drinkers presently inhabiting this planet. While initially that may sound a crap tonne of alarm bells, this is actually a positive shift. Less unfortunate decision-making by twenty-somethings involving tequila shots, for starters.
People drink for a multitude of reasons, but I can tell you right now that millennials drink to get comfortable. I can hear the objections now, “Millennials drink to get shitfaced!” you say, and that is an easy conclusion to jump to. But the fact is that drinking helps us let loose and forget for a second that we’re all floundering young “adults” who literally have no idea what we’re doing like 80% of the time.
A couple of us said millennials, all creative types with ties to the downtown core, got together one day with fab photographer Alona Power of No Direction Media for a fun wine-filled afternoon and to discuss where we are as a generation of newly-minted oenophiles. Our goal: to see how we as society and we as individuals are changed by increased exposure to our favourite boozy fruit juice. Over the course of the afternoon, Alona somehow managed not to pull her hair out as she dealt with a couple of giggly ladies (and a gentlemen) quickly drinking their way through 1, 2, and 3 glasses of wine.
“I think for me, wine became a bigger part of my life when I moved to Montreal for school. It was just so easy to access, just hop across the street from my residence to the local dep (convenience store) and there were shelves of cheap wine I could sift through. It’s so much more easily accessible there, way more so than hard liquor. I’ve been a wino ever since.”
Old thinking: You’ve gotta know about wine to drink it, and get ready to shell out for it
“If I’m buying wine at the LCBO, honestly, I go to the France section and then I just choose a bottle based on the label. I wouldn’t say I go for anything that looks super girly, just something interesting, you know? I’ll spend like max $30 a bottle. I feel like people think that wine is an old people drink, or that you’ve gotta be rich, and that’s just not the case, you know?”
Old thinking: Wine is serious and should be sipped by perceptive connoisseurs who know their tannins from their terroir
“Wine makes me more outgoing, more smiley. Compared to other kinds of alcohol, it’s a nicer head-drunk kind of feeling.”
Old thinking: Liking wine means knowing, appreciating, and discussing tasting notes on the palate and aromas on the nose
“Last summer I started hanging out with a group of winos. We would just sit around all day and drink wine. I didn’t even think I liked wine and then there I was, like, 3 bottles deep.”
The Shift
With each passing glass of wine, we let loose, laughed more, and the Drake tunes played louder. Wine’s original purpose was to liven up the party. Yet some time over the last couple centuries, we’ve chalked it up to a stiff, elitist enigma that nobody knows how to drink properly. The fact of the matter is that there is no ‘proper’ way to drink your wine. If it tastes good, drink it. Makes you more confident? More power to you. The barriers to access are crumbling down, with boxed wine, 2 buck chuck, and wine in a can becoming millennial staples. Stop making wine out to be something it’s not. It’s meant to be consumed. Take it off its pedestal, stop swirling, and drink the damn thing already.
