Generation Y, Or Shall We Say Gen Wine, Drinks More Than Any Other Before
Wine, beer, whiskey on the rocks, shots of vodka, mixed fruity drinks, and any kind of alcohol amalgamation is tossed back into the throats of millions of Americans every year, but young people are setting unprecedented records with their consumption. Generation Ys are unlike any baby boomers bars have ever seen. They don’t need a special occasion to pop a bottle of wine or grab a case of beer off the shelf on a Wednesday night.
One wine company decided to meet the demand of the Gen Y by creating a boxed wine with four full bottles of wine included inside, making it easier to consume at will and solidify their new hard-earned title as “Gen Wine.” Data was collected by Public House Wine, the wine company that’s taken it upon themselves to organize large sets of statistics and survey results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Blowfish Hangovers, and Wine Market Council, and put it all together an easy-to-follow infographic for their wine connoisseurs.
Generation Ys are also known as millennials, iGen, and echo boomers, as they were born between 1980 and 2000. They came into a world on the brink of technological brilliance and continuous innovative evolution. And apparently, the 21- to 34-year-olds have become completely enamored with their smartphones while being frequently hammered on goblets (or plastic cups) of wine. According to the numbers, 72 percent of winos drink with friends and during dinner, while another 60 percent wonder when they’re not drinking wine. Of those, 41 percent prefer to drink red wine, while 19 prefer white, eight percent like it sparkling, seven percent enjoy a glass of rose, and another nonchalant 25 percent will drink whatever kind of wine is available.
Millennials have been driving the wine consumption increase up drastically, as 28 percent between the ages of 21 to 26 report drink wine daily, and 83 percent of those say they choose wine because of its taste. Some like the taste so much, 50 percent of them wind up drinking themselves into a hangover for work, and waiters, realtors, sales people, police officers, and chefs are the greatest offenders of the working hangover, according to the numbers.
It’s no surprise, considering over the past years the alcoholic content of wine has been steadily climbing from 13 percent to a thrilling 17 percent, Scientific American reported this year. When a sweet and sultry buzz from a glass of merlot paired nicely with your steak dinner turns into full-blown intoxication, equipped with a dragging hangover the next day, it merits cause for worry. Today, people prefer deeper wines with brighter, fruitier notes that require longer ripened grapes coupled with caution. Fermented-grape love is nothing to fault a person for, especially the newly awarded “Gen Wine” phenomenon happening right now in this country. It's just best we keep watch of our ounces. Pinkies up, America.
With the individual average American drinking 819 drinks per year, it adds up to 122 billion drinks annually in this country. Public House Wine took it upon themselves to collect their own data from millennials and found the stories they shared has proven that they’ll drink anytime, anywhere, in anything. Seven percent of wine drinkers even report that chardonnay makes their pants fall off. Some of the other submissions include:
One Time I Drank Wine And…
- “Ended up on a yacht party with complete strangers, and got to meet Will.I.Am.”
- “Suddenly knew how to speak Mandarin.”
- “Took the best [dating site] OkCupid selfie ever.”
- "Sang karaoke with Megan Fox and Will Arnett.”
- “Fell asleep at McDonalds.”
- “Woke up on my roof.”
- “Tried to mimic all of Beyonce’s music videos, pulling multiple muscles.”
- “Got lost in the Australian outback.”
- “Ended up playing wine pong for three hours straight on a weeknight.”
- “Laughed so hard it came out my nose.”