The writing’s on the wall, literally

Research comes in many forms. Last weekend it found me, according to my family, staring endlessly at the back bar of a north London pub. 

“What are you doing Dad?”. “I’m checking out the wine list.”

And so I was. Chalked on a series of blackboards was an eclectic and intriguing selection of mainly European varieties - a special wine of the week, an orange wine (this was London after all), a chilled red. Most if not all sold by the glass as well as the bottle.

The hand-written array at the Landseer Arms, a cool but down-to-earth local that knows its metropolitan community, had done its job in grabbing my attention, as did the short list on the back of the paper menu at Jolene, a similarly relaxed bakery/bistro/coffeehouse on Hornsey Road, where we’d had brunch earlier. Another orange offering (of course), a gamay, a cabernet franc, even a German white - but plenty to interest even on a short list.

Wine sales in the on-trade have taken a bit of a dive in recent times. Liberty Wines reported recently that, by volume, wine sales in restaurants, hotels, pubs and bars are down 19% since 2019 - and the big problem appears to be among younger drinkers.

Is it that wine has become boring - or that pub, bar and even restaurant lists have become stale and predictable? As the examples above show, they don’t have to be. Or is it that tastes have shifted away from wine - and as we know customers can be a fickle bunch, especially millennials and Gen Zs?

As an article in the Financial Times highlighted last month, concern in the wine industry about the consumption habits of younger consumers goes back a few years with the publication of data at Vinexpo Paris revealing that Gen Z and millennials together only make up 26% of wine drinkers, but around 40% of the total UK population. 

What to do? Don’t worry too much about wine sales and shift to spirits and cocktails? Be warned on that, as spirit sales are now falling in what appears to be a post-cocktail era. Or work harder at your wine offering?

Why the latter is important is that while the Gen Z and millennial cohort make up just a third of total spend on wine drunk at home, they account for around half of total on-premise wine spend, according to numbers from Wine Intelligence. Younger people simply go out more, and the one encouraging piece of insight coming out of the wine industry is that they seem to be willing to pay more for a bottle of wine than bargain-hunting baby boomers when they do choose wine. 

It all comes back to the experience. Younger consumers want excitement, something new - and that seems to go for wine too.

The wine industry may appear to be staid and set in its ways, but it’s actually pretty dynamic. Even the Argentinian wine sector has only been to for fore for no more two or three decades - and here in the UK English sparkling wines are now high quality and mainstream. Now Greek wines are beginning to outsell Argentinian wines, or so I read in The Spectator, and white Rioja is now unrecognisable from the over-oaked varieties of my younger days.

Pub and restaurant wine lists have changed, but most need to go further. Add some excitement.

A malbec, a Provence rose and English fizz should be standard. Lighter chilled reds are becoming mainstream, as are ecological wines. Where do they figure on your lists? Don’t underestimate the sustainability premium. And, of course, there are orange wines, the new rose in many people’s eyes - white wines made by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the juice, creating a deep orange-hued finish.

A good example of where wine may well be heading, especially for younger drinkers, is La Cave, a wine bar and bottle shop underneath The Hoxton in Holborn, central London. It specialises in natural wines, that is wine typically grown by small-scale, independent producers in sustainable, organic or biodynamic vineyards, fermented with no added yeast and no additives. You get the picture. Last time I was in, the place was packed - and yes with young metropolitan types.

Go and see for yourself - it’s research after all. Delivering a memorable experience for customers is not just about the environment, the welcome, the people, but the product you are serving. Trying new food and drink is not only a perk of the job, but one of the many pleasures that make hospitality such an enjoyment. See you in the pub - and if I’m staring at the wall, don’t be worried.

A post-cocktail world?

Britain has lost over 30% of its nightclubs since the start of the pandemic, while those that have survived saw sales shrink by nearly 30% in 2023, so says Charlie Mitchell, CGA by NIQ’s director of research and insight.

There are also 10% fewer independent bars than in 2020, reflecting a shift in consumer behaviour and an evolution of occasions, he says. That shift is one of the main reasons spirit sales in many international markets, and not just Britain, have taken a plunge. Is it the death of the cocktail? Unlikely, as classic cocktails have survived the decades, but more a market reset.

Neither is late-night dead, but occasions are changing, with large-scale ticketed events at venues like the newly opened Drumsheds, a former IKEA store (yes, it’s that big) in Tottenham, making late-night clubbing less of a weekly date, but more of a once-every-few-months pre-planned blowout. 

Mitchell says the likes of bottomless brunch have also nudged high consumption occasions from nightclubs into restaurants and from spirits into prosecco. Another reason not to overlook the wine list - at least the fizz list.