I noticed an interesting piece in The Napa Valley Register today that expands somewhat on my piece last week about marketing wine to Millennials. There’s a lot of statistics to chew on in the report from the Wine Market Council of St. Helena, but a few things stuck out on my first reading.

First, packaging seems less important than I thought with about 50% still looking to things like varietal, price, brand, origin and vintage. The next finding that stuck out was that, “…37 percent of core Millennials bought wine under $3, as did 20 percent of Gen-Xers and 11 percent of boomers.” By “core” they mean consumers who regularly consume wine. I’m sure this stat will make Fred Franza and the folks at Trader Joe’s happy but not some of the brands now appearing to court the Millennial vino dollar. And finally, internet wine sales have increased sharply with 20% of “core” consumers buying online in 2006 vs. only 5% in 2000. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was closer to 50% this year.

Lots more to ponder here, so this will be continued later…

Check out the full story here.