August 01: During the past few years, the predictions were being made that wine consumption had a bright future with millennials showing increasing interest in it in India as everywhere else in the world but after gin started making inroads 3-4 years ago, and whisky having its moment now, it appears the trends are changing and it does not bode well for the wine industry, opines Subhash Arora
Gin has been becoming increasingly popular in India for the last few years. But this perhaps followed the universal trend; in fact 2016 was “Year of Gin" even in the UK, with sales topping £1 billion. Across Europe, North America, South Africa and Australia, the white spirit saw a phenomenal growth, especially among the younger demographic and in the premium gin category.
Lulie Halstead, CEO of the London-based research group Wine Intelligence had said at a wine conference in USA in January this year that the Millennials (born 1981-96) were increasingly getting immune to the charm of wine. She said that the wine-drinking population was shrinking and that Millennials with the strongest buying power were more attracted to liquor than wine. .
The preference of younger consumers for spirits over wine has started worrying over the future wine market, according to a Report in Wine-Searcher.
Wine-Searcher analysed its database of Searches in February and March 2019 by age groups and it confirmed what Halstead said with the whiskeys marching ahead. It shows that younger users were seven times as likely to search for whiskey than older users, and that whisky was increasingly eating into wine’s share. Of course, these are merely Google searches on their portal and indicate an intent rather than simple curiosity.
Globally speaking, 35% of the top 40 searches by millennials were made for whisky that included Games of Throne label based on the popular TV series. There were 14 whiskies in the top 40. The percentages of whiskey searches gradually reduced with age; for the 25-34 year segment it was 32.5 percent.
These figures were based on hits on all the systems. Assuming that the millennials are more comfortable with mobile phones, swing was even more skewed towards whiskies with only 6 wines in the top 20 mobile searches among the millennials, aged 18-24 years.
India effect
Wine-Searcher concedes that the figures are skewed towards whisky by huge increase in searches from India where whisky is the staple drink. In fact, in direct communication with delWine over a year ago, a senior executive of Wine-Searcher had wondered how the number of searches from India was huge but with no links with sales as in other countries, I had explained on Skype conversations that online sales of alcohol in India were banned and if anyone was found selling online, he would be prosecuted. In fact, since 2002 delWine has helped popularize Wine-Searcher as a source of information on standard pricing for wines and spirits to such an extent that it has become a de-facto source to ascertain prices globally for alcoholic drinks.
So what do these figures tell us? Simply that more people are searching for whiskey than ever before and – crucially – proportionally more people are searching for whiskey with an intention to buy than are doing so for wine. The next big question is whether wine producers can find a way to crack this growing market before they become obsolete?
https://www.wine-searcher.com
In an Article in January this year, the portal had disclosed that the Top 10 still contained the expected names like Mouton, Margaux, Lafite, Latour, Opus One and Sassicaia but beyond the top wines, presence of whiskey in the searched list had increased dramatically to around one fourth.
Even in June 2018, the list of most searched-for wines contained five non-wine entries- four Japanese whiskies and a single malt Scotch. The current list has whiskies from around the world, with eight Scotches, but only two from Japan. What is impressive is that India, a country without a notable tradition of making and exporting whiskey, has five entries of whiskey on the list- Antiquity Blue, McDowell's No. 1 Reserve, Royal Challenge, After Dark and Royal Stag. Searches for them are predominantly from India itself, which is slightly odd, given that there are no online sales of alcohol permitted there.
Parochial interests are also evident with the seven Bourbons on the list, which are almost entirely being searched for by Americans. The eight Scotches, two Japanese and Ireland's sole entry attract a more cosmopolitan following.
Subhash Arora
If you Like this article please click on the Like button