Are We Drinking Less Wine or Just Drinking Better?
I heard the numbers on the radio on Monday morning. Then I spent all week thinking about what they actually mean.
Mālō e lelei, fellow wine explorers.
Monday morning. Auckland traffic. Radio on, Newstalk ZB.
And there it was, New Zealanders are drinking less than we ever have. Record low. Not a dip, not a blip. The lowest since anyone started counting.
I turned it up.
Because they didn’t just give the number. They tried to explain it. And the reasons they landed on have been rattling around my head ever since.
Four reasons, and none of them are about wine
Money. People are cash-strapped. Groceries, rent, petrol, something has to give, and a bottle on a Wednesday is an easy thing to give up.
The economy underneath it. Hospitality is hurting. Venue closures are up sharply. When people stop going out, they stop drinking out.
A shift to other things. They talked about young people moving toward recreational drugs (pingers) instead of a night on the drink. Cheaper, they said. A different night out entirely.
And health. This was the big one. We’ve got a generation that has simply decided they want to feel good on Sunday morning. Zero-alcohol, low-alcohol, mid-strength, it’s not a novelty shelf anymore, it’s a real choice, and they’re taking it without any fuss at all.
Four different forces. One direction.
That’s not a trend. That’s a shift.
So where does that leave wine?
I sat with that for a couple of days, and I’ll be honest, the first feeling wasn’t a good one.
You spend years learning this stuff. Burgundy, cellars, harvests, the whole thing. Then you hear on the radio that the country is quietly walking away from it.
Look at what’s still selling
Here’s the part the headlines skip.
The decline isn’t even. Cheap wine is falling off a cliff. The premium end the good stuff, the bottles with a name and a place and a person behind them is holding up.
People aren’t walking away from wine. They’re walking away from forgettable wine.
That’s not a collapse. That’s an audience growing up.
I see it every week here in Auckland. Fewer bottles on the table. Better questions about each one. People who want to know where it came from, who made it, why it tastes like that.
Different rooms. Different people. Different energy.
And I love that.
The French worked this out a long time ago
When I was studying in Burgundy, I noticed something that took me months to properly understand.
They didn’t drink a lot. Not really. Not the way I’d assumed.
A glass with lunch. A glass with dinner. Never a rush, never a race. But that glass was chosen. Someone had thought about it. It sat next to food that it belonged with.
Volume was never the point. The table was the point.
New Zealand is arriving at the same place from the other direction — and honestly, we’re getting there faster than I expected.
So how do you actually drink better?
Because “buy better wine” is useless advice on its own. Here’s what actually works:
- Move the money, not the total. If you were buying four bottles at $15, buy two at $30. Same spend. Completely different fortnight. The jump in quality between $15 and $30 is bigger than the jump between $30 and $60 that’s the sweet spot, and most people never cross into it.
- Buy for an occasion, not for the shelf. A bottle bought for Sunday lunch gets opened properly. A bottle bought because it was on special sits in the cupboard until you drink it without noticing.
- Learn one producer, not one grape. “I like Pinot Noir” tells you almost nothing. “I like what this maker does” tells you exactly where to go next.
- Make the bottle last two nights. Stopper it, fridge it, reds included. A good wine on Tuesday and Wednesday beats a cheap one on Tuesday.
Wine Chief takeaway
Drinking less isn’t losing something. It’s the beginning of drinking well.
The bottles that survive this shift will be the ones with something to say, real places, real people, real hands in the dirt. That’s better for the grower, better for the winemaker, and much better for you.
Fewer bottles. Better bottles. More attention.
That’s not a decline. That’s a table finally worth sitting at.
Choose well, drink with joy, and keep it simple.
Mālō ‘aupito,
Semisi Telefoni — The Wine Chief