Winning the Next Occasion 

Erica Duecy, founder of Business of Drinks, led a data-driven Office Hours session covering what’s fueling growth across the beverage industry, what it means for wine’s next generation of drinkers (Millennials & LDA Gen Z), and, most importantly, what wineries can do to position their wines in front of these consumers.

Watch the recording and download her presentation.

A few takeaways from the session:

• Millennials are the core, and LDA Gen Z is the recruitment opportunity. Millennials are now 30-45 and represent a third of bev-alc buying households. They’re no longer the “younger drinker,” which means brands need a strategy to retain them while learning how to bring LDA Gen Z in.
• Occasion beats category loyalty. Younger consumers move fluidly across wine, beer, spirits, and RTDs depending on what they’re doing: unwinding, hosting, celebrating, or recovering. The question is not which category you are in, it’s what job your product is being hired to do.
• Purchase decisions happen long before the shelf. Consumers move through a journey: see it on social, search to understand it, find it in retail or an app, then recognize it on the shelf. Winning at the shelf means already having won several steps earlier.
• Reduce friction, not just messaging. RTDs have grown because they make choosing easy: clear ingredients, portion control, no full bottle commitment. Wine doesn’t need to become an RTD, but it does need to remove the friction points keeping younger drinkers from choosing it.
• The brands winning right now lead with fit, function, friction, flexibility, and familiarity. Erica’s “5 Fs” framework, illustrated through real examples like Wölffer Estate, Wente, and Tablas Creek, each built trust and access in a different way.