The analysts and pundits have delivered their annual “Sermons on the Industry,” and many now (very tentatively) prognosticate that an end to the decline in wine sales is … close… ish. Maybe 2027 or 2028.
Tens of thousands of acres of vineyards have been ripped out, abandoned, or mothballed as directed by informed analysts. The blood has been spilled; with two back-to-back, historically low harvests, they posit that supply should be equalizing with demand.
Except demand continues to decline.
With all of that future inventory now removed from wineries’ and distributors’ Excel spreadsheets, the industry turns to – ugh – inventory still on hand. Old inventory. That inventory that has not been selling. The premiumized wines whose costs continue to increase as they linger in warehouses and retail stores.
So what, exactly, is predicted to spur the slowing of the downward spiral and possibly push into positive prosperity? What demographic, cultural, societal, financial, or political change is to materialize that will spur industry growth? What do the analysts read in the leftover pips and skins at the bottom of their wine glasses that gives them that prophecy?
I don’t know. Some talk about how Generation X and Millennials are getting older and should start drinking more wine. You know, because they have more disposable income, are more settled, and their kids are older, etc. The industry just expects them to. But the same health-scare mongering by neo-Prohibitionists continues, and the industry barely does any collective or individual marketing or advertising. Politically, we are facing two-and-a-half more years of this administration, which, in turn, creates a very unpredictable economy and state of world affairs. Furthermore, those generations plus Gen Z have been trained by the wine industry to think wine is expensive and reserved for special occasions.
On that latter point, we are seeing the results of that marketing message and premiumization: sales decline while the average sale price per bottle goes up. That has been the only consistent, positive industry trend since 2018. We have told our customers that to drink well, they need to pay more, and since it is more expensive, that makes it for special occasions. Yes, many in the industry pay lip-service to the marketing message of “drink that Barbera with pizza on Tuesday,” but that is a pricey option when one has to shell out $65.00 or more for a bottle, thinking it must be that expensive to be any good. All of a sudden, pizza on Tuesday isn’t special enough to merit the wine. Wine is even more expensive for consumers in a restaurant.
The industry has also been resistant and slow to answer consumers’ demands to know what ingredients are in wine. This demand is now a cornerstone of the current retail landscape, as consumers are much more aware of ingredients (and the materials of physical goods) than ever before. This is part of their desire to consume healthy food and drink. Yes, most wines are nothing more than fermented grapes, yeast, some sulfur, and maybe some acid – many also spending time in oak barrels – but no, most consumers do not know that. They wonder about added sugar in wine. There is no downside to telling them what is in it.
This lack of transparency feeds into the health-scare tactics neo-Prohibitionists use to shape public policy. As the industry dwindles ever smaller, when will it become too ineffectual to have any real political or regulatory clout?
It is 2026, marking eight years of declining sales. What now? Instead of magically wishing for the industry to rebound, the wine industry needs to do something to make that happen.
The State of the Consumer
The current consumer is demanding:
- A broad diversity of products, flavors, and experiences
- Convenient, recyclable packaging
- Just-in-time delivery
- One-touch ordering
- Flexibility in purchasing (how, where, and what)
- Brands and products with integrity (no, not “authenticity”):
- Local
- High quality
- Transparent in ingredients / healthy
- Distinctive
- Low environmental impact
- Competitive pricing
- Respect in return for customer loyalty
- High-touch customer service
- Respect for customer privacy
- Enough product information available to make informed purchasing decisions
Meeting ALL of these consumer demands is necessary for success by any brand, big or small, mass-market or artisan. Price is always the number one consideration in a consumer’s purchasing decision, but the above factors lessen price’s importance, sometimes significantly.
Okay, what next? Here are some thoughts:
Industry, Get Off Your Rears and Put Wine in Convenient, Consumer-Friendly Packaging
Those familiar with T&T know we are a champion of “alternative” packaging. But let’s call it what it really is: convenience packaging. The 750-mL glass wine bottle with a tree-bark or synthetic cork is not convenient. It is not ecologically friendly (really). The fact that 90% of all wine priced at $20 or more comes in that one, single format makes it inconvenient, offering no choice to consumers. Furthermore, bottle stoppers and corks require an extra tool for extraction, which creates an additional barrier for the consumer.
The consumer has been communicating their dissatisfaction to the industry for a long time with their dollars. Since the launch of Black Box in 2002, sales of boxed fine wines have grown. They continue to do so during this industry depression; convenience is the primary selling factor. The same applies to wine in aluminum cans. These packaging formats are significantly outperforming wine in traditional packaging.
The loss of wine sales to other alcoholic beverages also clearly demonstrates this consumer preference. A major selling point of RTD (Ready-to-Drink) cocktails, beer, cider, and hard seltzer is the single-serve, convenient packaging.
It is time for the wine industry to get off its rear and cater to the customer. Convenience packaging – boxed wines, cans, single-serve containers, pouches, smaller bottles with screw caps, kegged wine for on-premise, goat-skin bota bags, whatever – put wine in it. Put good wine in them. Put good wine in them at good prices. Make wine competitive with RTD cocktails, craft beers, and craft ciders.
This move – creating a large, comprehensive, and competitive segment of wine in convenience packaging – would do more for sales than any other suggestion offered. Most immediately, the broad adoption of the screw cap for all “drink now” wines should be a “no-brainer.”
Beyond current available packaging, the industry needs to develop new form factors that highlight and brand the beverage specifically as wine – something exclusive that allows consumers to identify it on a shelf immediately. While aluminum is the most recyclable material available, drinking a vintage Cabernet Sauvignon straight from a traditional can is highly unpleasant. Furthermore, the traditional can is used for almost every other beverage type and does not immediately convey that wine is inside. Small bottles – whether glass, plastic, or aluminum – must be poured into glass to truly enjoy the wine, as drinking directly from them is often viewed as unacceptable. Asking a consumer to have a glass on hand is just as inconvenient as asking them to have a corkscrew. Let us create an appropriate, single-serve container and drive industry adoption!
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This proposed aluminum, single-serve wine glass is not an original idea. Zipz and Copa di Vino made a splash on Shark Tank with a clear, plastic, single-serve wine glass container. There was also briefly the “Stackables” concept – plastic, single-serve, ball-shaped glasses that snapped together in a shrink-wrapped four-pack equivalent to 750 mL. Tincknell & Tincknell worked briefly with an East Coast company that developed traditional-shaped, plastic wine glasses pre-filled with wine and sealed with a screw top (though it never reached the market).
The only original twist in this concept is utilizing aluminum – an easily recyclable, quick-chilling, and unbreakable material that consumers are already comfortable buying. A four-pack of 250-mL, single-serve aluminum cups, totaling one liter of wine for $16.00–$24.00 ($4.00–$6.00 per serving), would be competitive against high-end craft beer, RTD cocktails, and craft hard seltzers. This format can accommodate red, white, rosé, and sparkling wines. The plastic lid could even be “antique green” to evoke a traditional wine bottle. Furthermore, the “glass shape” with a curled, round lip would provide a comfortable and familiar drinking experience. Essentially, it is the packaging format of a stemless wine glass, rendered in aluminum. (Please contact us if you wish to discuss this further.)
Regardless of the specific packaging the industry adopts, it requires the major wine companies to lead a concerted effort to package most products into convenience packaging. Small wineries lack the market clout to expand this packaging segment rapidly. Furthermore, most small wineries produce wines more suitable for traditional packaging – specifically, wines intended to mature gracefully in the bottle over time. But, for the majority of wines on shelves today, it is long past time to ditch the glass bottle and the tree-bark cork.
Promote Wine’s Broad Range of Flavors
Younger consumers are chasing flavor trends as fast as TikToks flash by in their feeds. For 2026, food companies are offering flavor profiles that are sweet and spicy; sweet, tangy, and spicy; and sweet, savory, and spicy across snacks, drinks, and desserts. Blackcurrant has been pronounced the “flavor of the year,” and botanicals are in: forest pine, hibiscus, lavender, and elderberry are popular.
Again, the consumer move toward RTD cocktails, craft beer, hard seltzer, and other alcoholic beverage options is motivated more by ever-changing and exotic flavor offerings than for the convenience packaging alone.
What does this have to do with wine? Well, wine is naturally the most diverse food product due to the expansive world of wine grapes. Yet, the industry primarily clings to a “safe” selection of Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Pinot Noir because those wines keep selling … largely because they are the ones most readily available. It is a Catch-22.
We do not need to “dumb down” wine to make it easy for consumers to understand; rather, we need to build excitement about the incredible wealth of flavor options already and naturally available. Furthermore, the industry should continue experimenting with flavored wine products for the casual drinker, much like the offerings from Arbor Mist, BeatBox, and Whiny Baby. Those flavored, sweeter wines have an equal place alongside all other wines. The industry has reached a point where it should be less concerned with what wine is being consumed and more focused on celebrating that wine is being drunk at all.
Chasing varietal grape trends is also a losing proposition. As a farm-based industry, it cannot pivot fast enough to truly exploit a fad – unless it involves artificial flavor trends, such as blackcurrant-flavored wine, or a large corporate winery that can purchase bulk inventory quickly. Just because Sauvignon Blanc is “having a moment” does not mean Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards should be uprooted and replanted, nor should new Sauvignon Blanc vineyards be planted in Alaska to chase the market. By the time those vineyards are productive, the consumer will have moved on. Those who produce Sauvignon Blanc should “make hay” while they can, while the rest of the industry should promote every alternative – from Albariño to Txakolina, and Alicante Bouschet to Zinfandel – to generate future consumer excitement.
Furthermore, industry pundits and tastemakers must stop disparaging popular wine trends. Wine coolers, White Zinfandel, oaky Chardonnay, Merlot, sweet red blends, and Moscato have all introduced new consumers to wine. If that is what the consumer prefers, celebrate it. It only takes one industry professional or writer denigrating a person’s preferences to alienate them from wine forever. If Retsina on ice becomes a fad, embrace it!
Reorganize
Industry organizations are failing to stop the decline in sales. Too many of them are oriented strictly toward research and government or community policy, doing little to promote wine directly to consumers. While some do attempt outreach but, for the most part, their ideas and efforts are stale and fail to reach current consumers.
Demographic, cultural, and societal changes are permanently altering the retail landscape. The fracturing of information sources into millions of websites, blogs, YouTube videos, influencers, and social media platforms makes dispersing a single, coherent marketing message to the masses almost impossible. A singular organization for the wine industry – such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the group behind “Where’s the beef?” and “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” – is unfeasible. Wine producers range from micro-luxury brands to multinational corporate conglomerates, all with highly divergent promotional needs.
Regional and national organizations are no longer the definitive answer to the current state of the market.
The solution lies in the industry self-organizing into communities that promote specific values. While this may include regions defined by viticulture, I believe that compatible wineries and brands working together to promote their shared attributes will be more successful. For instance, wineries along the East Coast are seeing Cabernet Franc gain popularity; that commonality could serve as a primary unifying distinction for a geographically diverse group. Marketing communities should also be built around diversity – whether societal or varietal – as well as hobbies, arts, fashion, travel, car shows, swim meets, camping, sports, etc. While none of this is inherently new thinking, these existing and emerging communities must spend more money on promotion and marketing to expand the wine market to new consumers.
Don’t Reinvent, Rebuild
Wine’s innate diversity is its strength; there is literally a wine for every interested consumer. The industry renews its products every year. However, the wine industry has diminished to the point where rebuilding it must happen person by person – by creating new, engaged consumers who integrate wine into their lives, cultures, and communities. We do not need to “reinvent” wine; rather, we must celebrate its inherent gastronomic and cultural affinities. And please, let us provide it to consumers in friendly, eco-friendly, and convenient packaging.