Regular wine consumption in the UK has probably peaked, with just over 28m people drinking wine at least once a month, according to research commissioned by the Wine & Spirit Trade Association (WSTA).

‘We are peaking with our pool of wine consumers in the UK,’ said Brian Howard, business development director of Wine Intelligence, which carried out the consumer research. ‘It’s not going to get much bigger unless we engage the millennials, the people who have just become young adults. Unless we proactively bring them into our category, the pool of wine consumers will decline.’

Consumers are still showing a general reluctance to spend more on wine in the on-trade, the research found, although there had been a slight improvement over the last six months.

And the proportion of regular wine drinkers now not buying wine in the on-trade has doubled in the past three years, equating to 500,000 ‘lost’ consumers.

‘[Drinking wine] with food looks more robust than casual wine drinking in the on-trade,’ said Howard.

Among general trends, rosé is continuing to gain ground at the expense of white wine, while the fastest-growing varietals in popularity terms over the last three years have been Pinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc for whites – and Tempranillo and Malbec for reds.

New Zealand and South African wine continue to gain in popularity, while declines have been registered for Australia, France and Germany.

The survey also suggested that consumers were increasingly receptive to lower abv wines.

News item from Imbibe.com, 08-07-2010