Five key trends defining opportunities in the global wine market in 2025

The outlook for global wine volumes remains largely negative, with continued consumption declines and an ageing consumer base – but, despite ongoing economic difficulties, opportunities remain to meet the needs of the next generation of more involved, adventurous consumers.

According to the Global Wine Trends Executive Summary 2024 report, newly published by IWSR, the global leader in beverage alcohol data and insights, wine volumes in most key markets will continue to decline in the next few years.

“For wine, the battle to recruit younger legal drinking age drinkers in sufficient numbers is intensifying, as many mature markets become increasingly reliant on older generations to shift the volume,” says Richard Halstead, Chief Operating Officer Consumer Insights and Custom Analytics. “Experienced drinkers are loyal, but less involved with the category, and lower spending than younger drinkers.

“Meanwhile, in the wider world, multiple headwinds are restricting spend on alcohol, be it active moderation, economic worries, or simply the reduction in the number of beverage alcohol consumption opportunities for wider lifestyle or cultural reasons.”

However, opportunities remain. Millennial consumers – those now in their late 20s through to early 40s – tend to be more highly involved in wine, have more experimental tastes and are happy to spend more on a bottle or a drink in a bar at a time when older consumers are cutting back on spend. They are willing to explore a broader range of retail channels, and are attracted to brands, story-telling and experiences that reflect their lifestyles.

Meanwhile, as governments increasingly prioritise action on climate change and excessive alcohol consumption, opportunities are created for for no-/low-alcohol, natural, organic and sustainable wines.

“Structural threats to the wine industry persist,” says Richard. “However, despite this largely pessimistic outlook, there remains plenty of potential for wine to innovate and harness opportunities in this challenging new landscape.”

IWSR has identified five key trends set to shape the global wine market in 2025 and beyond:

Demographic challenges

The number of wine drinkers in key global markets rebounded following the Covid-19 pandemic, but – despite adult population growth – has been declining since, falling by 5m people between 2021 and 2024, according to IWSR data. In the US, the number of adults in the total population has increased by 9.5m since 2022 – but the number of monthly wine drinkers has risen by only 500,000.

As people enter the category at a slower rate, older drinkers now constitute the largest age group in many mature markets, with over-55s accounting for almost 50% of wine drinkers in key markets such as the UK, France, Portugal and Belgium.

“We have an emerging paradox in wine, where we are missing a chunk of recruits we would normally expect from younger generations, but those younger consumers we are recruiting are typically much more involved and higher spending,” says Richard Halstead. “Meanwhile the bulk of volume sold is to Boomers (over-60s), who constitute the majority of drinkers, and tend to report lower levels of involvement than younger drinkers.

“The silver lining in all this for wine is that involvement levels in the category are actually rising as more enthusiastic younger legal drinking age (LDA) drinkers replace less involved consumers.”

The moderation trend

As wine drinkers become increasingly mindful of their consumption patterns, sales volumes are declining in all of the world’s top 10 wine markets, according to IWSR data. In China, still wine volumes fell by almost 100m cases between 2018 and 2023. Although the sharpest declines appear to have passed, this negative trend is expected to continue.