Millennial Wine Consumer – Matt

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(Millennial) Matt...heckuva guy!

Since the wine industry is simply jonesing to court the Millennial generation (those peeps born between 1980-2000) as the next generation of wine consumers, I thought it might be fun to just start interviewing some Millennial friends for their honest opinions!

Winery marketing departments…are you present?  Bueller?  Bueller?

First up is Matt..a smart, fun, hardworking and über-responsible kinda guy.

Before we get started, for future Wine 2.0 shenanigans like this interview, I’d much appreciate your vote for my Murphy-Goode video application.  (All it requires is your e-mail address for a confirmation link.  NO SPAM…scout’s honor.)

THE INTERVIEW

First off, thank you, Matt, for sharing some time away from your fascinating Millennial life.

You’re very welcome.

1. How old are you and how often would you say you buy wine?

I am 22 years old, and still kickin’. I’d say my wine purchasing is fairly frequent. I try to keep at least a bottle of red and a bottle of white on hand most of the time. You never know who might stop by.

2. Have you ever purchased wine online, directly from a winery or online retailer?

I haven’t. I haven’t been drinking wine long enough to have any hard-won brand loyalty so I usually just buy from the grocery store or BevMo. But if there was a wine that I was really a fan of that was only available regionally, I would definitely consider ordering. Otherwise, why wait a week for what you can drive down the street to get?

3. How do you decide which wine(s) to buy if you’re at a store?

Well, I’m a college kid [Cal State University, Long Beach] so for casual wine drinking, price is a major factor. However, that’s not always the case. A lot of times I’ll get wine recommendations from family friends or friends’ parents and am willing to spend some extra to try a really good wine. Also, when I’m just browsing the wine section to try something new, bottle design is a fairly major determinant. It may not affect the taste, but a well-designed bottle just seems to make it more fun!

4. And your super-cool Millennial friends, what is their relationship with wine?  What place does the grape serve in their lives?

That’s hard to quantify. Believe it or not most of my friends (young twenty-somethings) are fairly regular wine drinkers. The occasion and brand often varies but I think a lot of the attraction is the idea of wine and its surrounding culture.

5. Do you all serve wine at parties? Or only holidays/fancy functions?

Usually at your average weekend house party, the only wine being served is from a box (Wine .5, if you will) but wine definitely has its place in the social life of the twenty-something set. Of course, fancier functions and nice dinners, etc. call for some good wine; but for me, wine with friends over a movie or going hot-tubbing is just as much a common thing. Just last night some friends and I went through a few bottles of wine and a couple good six-packs of beer watching the Lakers game.

6. Did anyone influence you to try wine or first discover it?

Wine was always served at family gatherings growing up, and my mom is a bit of a wine enthusiast as well. There was never a pressure to become a wine lover, but I think just the fact that it has been a part of my family has at least subconsciously led me to want to try it.

7. What could a winery do, if anything, to influence your decision-making?

Well, for buying in a store I think my criteria are pretty stagnant: reasonable price, fun bottle, and word-of-mouth definitely helps.

If a winery that I were visiting were looking to win my business, the best way in my book, besides good wine, is a friendly, knowledgeable tasting room staff. I recently took a trip to Paso Robles to do some wine-tasting and I tried some great wines that I chose not to buy because the tasting room staff [had already] decided that people in my age group weren’t going to bring them any business.

On the flipside, there were a few wines [at other wineries] that I bought that were a bit out of my normal price range because the staff was so friendly and willing to educate a burgeoning wine lover about their product.

Awesome, Matt.  Thanks for your time!  I’m now going to look up half the words you used.

Of course, this is only one wine consumer’s perspective, but I think Matt is fairly representative of many other wine consumers.  If anything, he’s a more sophisticated wine buyer than others his age.

What conclusions did you draw from Matt’s responses?  Any major questions I missed that you’d like to see answered in future interviews?

(And don’t forget to vote!)

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Tags: average wine consumer, Interview, Millennials, Murphy-Goode, Wine buying habits