Youthful exuberance lifts U.S. wine industry

By Mary Milliken

ST. HELENA, California (Reuters Life!) - The great news for the U.S. wine industry is that young Americans are drinking copious amounts of wine. The no-so-great news is that they are a fickle lot.

Vintners -- even those in the most established wine regions like California's Napa Valley -- say they have to work hard to get their attention and bring about brand loyalty. Making great wine does not suffice.

"They choose their wines based on newer projects, the hip "in" names, the things that are different, a unique story," said Wesley Steffens, 31, who manages his family's new Vineyard 7 & 8 winery on the hills over Napa Valley.

Wine consumption in the United States has risen each year for the past 14 years and the fastest growing segment of drinkers today is the "Millennial Generation" -- those who started reaching adulthood around the year 2000.

Vintner Kathleen Heitz Myers, president of long-time Napa Valley winery Heitz Cellars, said this tech-savvy generation "doesn't want to be told what to drink."

"They like to do the research themselves on the Internet," she said as she chaired Napa's famous wine auction weekend earlier this month.

AFTER 'TWO BUCK CHUCK'

The United States is expected to overtake France as the No. 1 world wine consumer in the short term. And although France has much higher per capita consumption, young people there are drinking less wine and more spirits.