Dead or Just Missing

With
the recent demise of Wine X magazine coming as little
surprise to most people in the industry, it raises a
question or two about the market they were supposedly
catering to. The twenty-one to mid-twenties age group is an
often-ignored segment of our market. The scarborough wine
market report’s findings revealed some interesting
correlations between consumers’ age and the average price
paid for a bottle of wine. The study shows that the 21- to
24-year-old age segment is twice as likely to pay more than
$2O for a bottle of wine than other age segments. Yet in
terms of marketing, they tend to be targeted by the “critter
wines” I referred to in last month’s article; smooth-talking
Englishmen peddling liquor; and beers that come with a
cheerleader fantasy. Wine X was an attempt to give this
segment a bit more credit for taste – or at least for
curiosity that might lead to good taste. It was a good idea
in theory, because they buy wine just like the rest of
us.

Then again, in
one very meaningful way they aren’t quite like the rest of
us: many of them have a lot of disposable income. Starting
salaries are high for newly anointed MBAs, lawyers and
soon-to-be doctors. Many in this particular bracket are
still single and without a mortgage, and thus have more
income to spend on . . . whatever. And though they may have
a large amount of money at their fingertips, they’re unsure
of how to spend it. It does make you wonder doesn’t it? A
segment of the market that can have that much of a disposal
income and it’s mostly ignored. We Bostonians in the
industry should be especially attuned to this portion of the
market. Why? Because you can’t walk more than two feet in
this town without tripping over an institute of higher
learning. I can sympathize with why so few businesses cater
to this crowd. As I’m no longer in the restaurant side of
things, I can mention this without insulting anyone in
particular. There was a certain small portion of my
clientele who rubbed me the wrong way. I would, not so
fondly, call them peasants. Not to insult any true peasants
reading this article, but the people I am referring to
certainly earned this title. More often than not, they were
in the twenty-something bracket, working for a Fortune 5OO
company. They were rude, inconsiderate and didn’t have a
clue on what or how to conduct themselves in a five star
restaurant environment. I swear to Bacchus, one actually
snapped his fingers and called me “Garcon”. It was as if
they just fell off the turnip truck, yet had an air of
entitlement I never understood.

Over time
however, I realized that they were like this because no one
showed them how they ought to behave. There really isn’t a
forum to which our youngest patrons can relate when it comes
to purchasing wine. Not to pick on the “critter wines” yet
again, but they heavily influence novice wine drinkers who
don’t have the experience to know what else they might
purchase. We can and should reach out to this segment and
educate them. But we also have to recognize that they’re
different from older patrons. You find them in different
places. For example, they’re often in colleges, many of
which have some form of “wine and cuisine appreciation” club
that will bring together a large roomful of eager listeners
if you’ll just bring the wine and give an educational pitch.
Or you find them in the same places but at a different time.
Twenty-somethings making big bucks don’t go to afternoon
wine tastings, or even early-evening tastings. They’re still
at work, being young masters of the universe. They’re out on
the streets later, so we need tasting events later in the
evening to capture them. And they typically have shorter
attention spans than those of us who could drive when MTV
came of age. So any event needs to be snappy, delivering
something of interest to them in a short, focused
package.

Probably the
most important thing we can do is to stop ignoring them. My
wife was one of these young six-figure globetrotters
herself, but didn’t even know what a sommelier was until she
met me. She’d never encountered one in a restaurant, and not
because she never went to establishments that had them.
She’d simply been to restaurants where the staff saw a
potential ‘peasant’ when she entered, rather than her
potential as the wine-lover she is today, and as any
2O-something could be if we give them the
opportunity.