Paris, 10 February 2020 – Vinexpo Paris inaugural conference of the new show reveals spirits premiumisation on upward trend and continuing success story of rosé growth – and shifting perception of wine in younger generation drinkers is a warning light for the wine trade.
Drinking ‘less but better’ continues to be the key driver in spirits premiumisation and sets the outlook for vodka and national spirits towards 2023, both the IWSR and Wine Intelligence reported in a joint conference at Vinexpo Paris, the first to be held in the Vinexpo Academy’s programme of conference and events at the inaugural Paris show.
Thorsten Hartmann, Director of Consulting at IWSR said that superior volume growth in the standard-and-above brackets is a feature of most spirits sub-categories, with the exception of India-produced whisky. The growth of the Premium-and-above spirits market is forecast at 4.7% CAGR 2018–23, compared to 0.4% for standard-and-below spirits for the same period.
Global Forecast Volume 2018–23 shows a growth edge of spirits over wine, with spirits growth forecast at 0.6% (includes local products such as baiju) over wine at 0.2%.
In contrast to the premiumisation growth driver in spirits, for still and sparkling wine it is the standard-and-above segments that will drive overall growth for sparkling wine, but this will not be enough to counter a slight overall decline for still wines. Sparkling wine growth will be driven mainly by the US, Italy and Russia markets.
Rosé continues its success story with Wine Intelligence’s data 2007–19 showing an uptake in consumption across UK, Canada and the US of 50%, 41% and 36% respectively. According to Richard Halstead, COO of Wine Intelligence, rosé’s continuing growth is being driven by women and younger people and an increase in men drinking more of what was formerly regarded as an exclusively female drink.
Wine Intelligence’s (WI) Richard Halstead also highlighted a number of trends highlighting that wine’s position as the beverage of choice for 30–64yr olds can no longer be taken for granted. These included the key trend that consumers appear to want to learn more about wine as a part of their lives, but (according to WI surveys) their level of knowledge of wine has fallen. How bottles appear and appeal to the consumer is also becoming more important to the consumer who is concerned with what the product says about them, visually, when viewed on Instagram for example.
“What the consumer, especially the younger consumer, seems to be saying,” Richard Halstead said, “is, paradoxically – ‘I want to learn more, but know less’ ”.
Vinexpo Paris and Wine Paris take place from 10 to 12 February 2020 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles
