Annoying millennials really are “winey” – and a new study proves it.
The oft-scorned, selfie-obsessed members of Taylor Swift’s generation drank 42 percent of all wine in the US last year, more than any other age group , according to a survey by the nonprofit Wine Market Council.
Millennials guzzled 159.6 million cases of wine in 2015 – an average of two cases apiece, or 3.1 glasses per sitting, the report found.
Generation X — the group between 39 and 50 years old – consumed 20 percent of all wine in the US, and averaged 2.4 glasses a sitting, the group’s High Frequency Tracking study found.
Baby Boomers — 51 to 69 year-olds — sipped 30 percent of the wine consumed in America, and tallied 1.9 glasses a sitting, the researchers found.
And the Silent Generation –70-years-old plus–accounted for 8 percent of the wine consumed, the group added.
Millennials are also now the largest wine-drinking demographic in the country, making up 36 percent of all wine drinkers, for the first time overtaking Boomers, who dropped to 34 percent, and Gen-Xers, who claimed third place at 18 percent, the report found.
“Wine drinkers are beginning to sort themselves out,” WMC President John Gillespie said, adding that older millennials — 30 to 38 years old —are more settled in life and more confident in their tastes.
“It’s the self-identification of, ‘Yeah, I’m a wine person,’” he said.
Millennial oenophiles also are willing to shell out more money to booze it up with fancier reds and whites.
The survey found that 17 percent of the millennial drinkers spent $20 or more on a bottle of wine in the past month, compared to 10 percent of all drinkers and 5 percent of Boomers.
Not surprising, they also are eager to share their wine experiences in social media – notably on Facebook, where more than 50 percent of them talk about it.
And more than a third of take to Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to kvell about their latest, greatest bottle of Merlot.