By Ava Stepanian

What Gen Z is Craving

Not long ago, the quintessential drink for young adults was an espresso martini or spicy margarita. On weekends, most young people went out to bars or clubs, dancing until closing time with a mixed drink in hand.  

Today, due largely to rising costs and a growing desire for meaningful social connections, young adults are ditching the clubs (at least some of the time), and instead hosting intimate, at-home gatherings with close friends and a bottle of wine. While 15% of people in their twenties still report partying every weekend, a clear trend is emerging, with much of the younger generation craving more personal and cost-conscious social experiences. Compounded by the rise of digital fatigue, this shift has resulted in wine representing more than just a beverage; it has become associated with a certain lifestyle that much of Gen Z, which includes people born between the years 1996 and 2007, is craving.

The Decline of Party Culture And Rise of Intimate Gatherings at Home

Gen Z has become known as the “dry generation,” with 61% of people globally between ages 18 and 30 reporting that they are going out to bars and clubs less frequently. Financial stress, wellness culture, and mental health awareness have influenced what younger consumers are drinking and how they are consuming. When Gen Z does choose to drink, there is often an emphasis placed on prioritizing cost, moderation, and mindfulness.

According to WellPower, there are plenty of reasons why Gen Z doesn’t feel fulfilled by clubbing culture, unlike their older counterparts. With the cost of living rising faster than wages, many people in their twenties are skipping clubs to avoid the financial hangover that often comes with a night out. Between cover charges, drinks, and rideshare fees, the average person spends between $55 and $120 on a night out at a high-end club. Hosting friends at home offers a more affordable way to socialize without sacrificing the experience. TimeOut shared one 22-year-old’s story, who was quoted as saying, “I […] cannot afford to be a party girl right now.”  

Emphasizing mental and financial wellbeing, there is a desire among younger consumers for:

  • Low cost social activities
  • Quieter, more conversational environments 
  • Curated experiences 
  • Social settings focused on connection 

Gen Z craves a sense of community and searches for events and settings where they can have more intimate experiences. For a generation constantly overwhelmed by endless streams of information and digital stimulation, these meaningful and mindful experiences are exactly what many Gen Z-ers are seeking. The appeal of wine often lies in the social experience it creates for younger consumers, rather than the alcohol content. A bottle of wine shared with friends at happy hour or at home creates an intentional experience. 

How Social Media is Inspiring At-Home Wine Tastings

Young adults are increasingly choosing to socialize at home rather than spend money on expensive nights out. As a result, wine has become a centerpiece for hosting at home gatherings, offering an affordable way to elevate the experience and bring people together without elevating the price. These trends reflect a broader shift in how younger consumers are approaching wine, a shift that is amplified through social media, with at-home gatherings becoming a major source of inspiration for Gen Z.

On platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, wine content increasingly focuses on shared experiences, group gatherings, and community-driven recommendations rather than traditional tasting rules. Viral videos such as at-home wine tastings, wine-centered dinner parties, and aesthetic lifestyle videos showcasing wine have gained significant traction across social media. Content creators are helping reshape wine culture by presenting wine as an accessible, social beverage, encouraging young consumers to focus less on etiquette and more on enjoyment and connection. 

These platforms have also become hubs for experimentation, with Gen Z users creating wine cocktails and sharing unexpected food pairings. Rather than focusing on formal etiquette or individual preferences, young adults are using wine as a social experience that brings people together. According to a Food & Wine article, Lois Cho notes that “[Gen Z] ask which bottles work across a whole table rather than for a single pairing,” highlighting the generation’s preference for connection, inclusivity, and shared enjoyment. As this sentiment spreads across social media content, wine culture is evolving to become more accessible, social, and centered on shared experiences.

Ultimately, wine’s rise among Gen Z is about more than just a beverage preference. It reflects a cultural shift toward quality over quantity, intentionality over excess, and purposeful experiences. As this generation continues to redefine food and beverage culture, wine has emerged at the center as a symbol of a more thoughtful and connected way of gathering.

By Maggie Zeman

Double Forte is heading to Bar Convent Brooklyn next month.

This year, we are especially excited to return and participate as a judge in the 2026 BCB Brand Pitch Accelerator Competition, presented in partnership with Women of the Vine & Spirits. Celebrating its second year, the competition showcases emerging beverage brands in front of a live audience of industry leaders and decision-makers, offering a strong snapshot of where innovation and investment are headed across the category.

One trend that will be a core conversation at the conference is: the beverage industry is increasingly competing on experience, not simply product. Consumers no longer separate hospitality from branding. The experience itself has become the marketing.

That shift is changing how beverage brands build awareness, loyalty, and cultural relevance.

Across spirits, wine, beer, and non-alcoholic categories, brands are investing heavily in immersive tastings, collaborations, pop-ups, curated hospitality moments, and destination-driven experiences. In many cases, the bar, tasting room, restaurant partnership, or live activation now serves as the brand’s most effective media channel.

This evolution reflects broader consumer behavior. According to Eventbrite’s “Experience Economy” research, nearly 80 percent of millennials said they would rather spend money on experiences than physical goods. More recent consumer research from agencies including McKinsey and Deloitte continues to show strong demand for social connection, premium experiences, and memorable in-person engagement, even amid economic uncertainty.

Emotional connection drives purchasing behavior more than traditional advertising.

Consumers discover brands through bartenders they trust, spaces they enjoy, and experiences they want to share socially. Atmosphere influences perception. Hospitality shapes credibility. Participation builds loyalty. That reality also changes the role of communications and marketing teams.

PR is no longer limited to promoting a launch after it happens. Increasingly, communications strategy shapes the experience itself, helping brands create moments consumers want to attend, photograph, post about, and recommend. As Marshall McCluhan said, “The message is the medium.”

The brands gaining traction today understand this distinction. They are not simply selling beverages. They are building a community that provides cultural participation and builds identity around their products.

Whatever lies ahead, we look forward to reporting back with key takeaways from the show floor, conversations with industry leaders, and insights that either reinforce or reshape our expectations about where beverage marketing is heading next.

There’s been a lot of doom and gloom in the wine industry lately. But one surprising bright spot has emerged, and it’s not organic wines, canned wines or Rosé. Surprisingly (or not surprising if you keep reading), it’s flavored wine. That is, wine infused with natural flavoring made from non-grape materials, as opposed to traditional wine, which gets its flavors from grapes and winemaking techniques.

In a beverage category that is so closely tied with tradition, history and terroir, the very thought of flavored wine will make many wine enthusiasts and critics stick their nose up. With the wine industry’s overall decline, however, we can’t ignore what’s working. According to The Drinks Business and Nielsen IQ data, flavored RTD wine cocktails grew 15% year over year, along with wines with higher alcohol by volume (around 16%), which grew 8.9%. Comparatively, still wines declined -5.8% overall.

What is interesting about flavored wine is what it says about today’s consumer. Its rise reflects a broader shift in consumer behavior towards prioritizing clarity, familiarity, convenience, and immediate gratification when purchasing beverages. Below we explore what’s behind the growing popularity in flavored wine and why it’s important to consider when marketing to today’s consumer.

Flavor is Trending Across the Beverage Category

Late last year, in our 2026 Food & Drink Trend Forecast blog post, we predicted that 2026 would take flavor trends to new levels, and that prediction has certainly proven true across the beverage space. It’s not just flavored wine that’s trending. According to CSP Daily News and Nielsen IQ data, “flavored alcohol beverages—including flavored malt beverages (FMBs), hard seltzers, prepared cocktails and wine-based cocktails—accounted for roughly 21% of total beer, wine and spirits sales in U.S. convenience stores in the year through April 18.”

As we look to bring new consumers into wine, producers must consider that flavor is key to influencing younger legal drinking age (LDA) consumers’ purchasing decisions. Beyond traditional wine and beer, younger consumers have many more beverage options than ever before. Fruity or easy-to-understand flavor profiles dominate alternative beverage categories, so it’s not surprising to see Gen Z and Millennial consumers looking for similar flavor profiles when it comes to wine. Considering the myriad of choices, flavored wine could very well serve as a gateway to bring more members of this younger demographic into the category.

Flavor is Straightforward

Wine can be confusing. Wine labels can quickly become overwhelming to anyone walking the wine aisle. According to research from Wine Market Council (WMC) and Quini, “24% of wine drinkers say label information rarely helps them choose a wine,” as reported by Wine Business Monthly. Similarly, 34% of these wine drinkers “report buying a bottle they expected to match a flavor or style they liked—only to be disappointed.”

Because flavors are often familiar and easy to understand, flavored wines simplify the wine shopping experience by stating more directly what consumers can expect when they take their first sip. This kind of clear communication and marketing may be especially important for younger consumers who are newer to wine and approach it in a different way than previous generations. Rather than relying on centuries of tradition and prestige to appeal to wine consumers, it is important for marketers and brands to meet consumers where they are and understand their needs and wants. In an industry facing declining consumption and headwinds, innovation will be essential to wine’s future.

Value Matters More Than Ever

In today’s unpredictable economy, value matters. Consumers want confidence that what they are purchasing will deliver the value and flavor they expect. As consumers become more selective about where they spend their money, some want products that pack a bigger punch, as alcohol also factors into a perception of value for their purchase. The Wine Group is innovating to reach this higher alcohol wine consumer. In a recent interview, CMO Helen Kurtz told The Drinks Business “People looking for a serious kick with their wine tend to also want ‘high fruit and flavor cues, so we introduced several new lines, like MAD DOG by MD 20/20, FUEL by Franzia, and the new Dulce Sol Spiked Aguas Frescas line.’”. This is just one example of the many ways wine companies are providing innovative products for flavor-conscious consumers.

Whether flavored wine becomes a lasting segment or not, its growth reflects a broader shift in how consumers approach beverage purchasing. Today’s drinkers increasingly value clarity, familiarity, and accessibility over tradition alone. As presented in a recent blog post on agility in food & beverage marketing, emerging trends are highly important for marketers to understand in order to appeal to current consumer preferences. For wine marketers, understanding this shift in consumer behavior will be critical to attracting the next generation of wine drinkers.

Launching a new wine brand? Reach out to our team to discuss how we can help you build a strategy that appeals to your target consumer.

By Alexis Dowling

If you work with beverage brands, you’ve likely been exposed to the doom and gloom in the drinks industry this past year. 2025 gave countless headlines in the news about the decline of alcohol consumption in the United States, volumes of beer, wine and liquor taking a hit, and even acres of California vineyards being ripped out due to lower demand.

Looking ahead to the future of wine, beer and spirits for 2026, we can’t help but think about one of the industry’s bright spots: Non-Alcoholic drinks. Not just for “Dry January” anymore, Non-Alcoholic wines continue to proliferate the industry and gain popularity, while increasing their quality. Last year, we included the topic in our 2025 wine trends forecast as an area to watch, and boy was it. As reported by NielsenIQ, “with $925M in off-premise sales and +22% growth year-over-year, this category is no longer just an alternative—it’s a lifestyle choice.”

Let’s take a look at the state of the industry in 2025 and what we might have to look forward to this year:

Quality Is Finally Starting to Catch Up

Recently, I enjoyed a glass of non-alcoholic prosecco, and it got me thinking about how far non-alcoholic beverage innovation has come in the last several years, and in some ways, how far we still have to go.

If you want to see the potential of non-alcoholic beverage innovation and quality, beer might be the best example. Personally, I am a huge fan of non-alcoholic beer. The quality has skyrocketed over the last five years or so, thanks in large part to Athletic Brewing. They demonstrated a gap in the market and pushed the category forward with innovative new ways to make non-alcoholic beer. (If you haven’t listened to Athletic Brewing Company founder Bill Shufelt’s interview on the How I Built This podcast, I highly recommend it). These days, I am constantly impressed by the quality of the N/A beers I try – there are SO many to choose from, and I can barely taste the difference between them and their alcoholic counterparts.

Non-Alcoholic Wine Still Has a Ways to Go

As for non-alcoholic wine, the category has made strides in the last few years but still has a ways to go. While it lags behind N/A beer in terms of innovation, it’s for good reason. Wine has a higher alcohol content (12-14% ABV) than beer (4-6% ABV), “meaning its complete removal has a dramatic impact on the liquid’s texture and overall balance,” says SevenFifty Daily. Speaking of that non-alcoholic prosecco, while I happily drank the whole glass, I couldn’t help but think about how it tasted closer to an apple juice than a sparkling Italian wine.

But there’s a lot of reason to have hope for N/A wine. Several brands have launched new and  innovative non-alcoholic wines, such as Josh’s Non-Alcoholic Sparkling and Cupcake Vineyards’ Alcohol-Removed Sauvignon Blanc. Cupcake’s new non-alcoholic offering was a natural extension for the brand, which launched a lower-alcohol line, Cupcake Lighthearted, several years prior. It’s clear that major brands see potential in the category, and are investing in its growth and innovation – which is good news for consumers looking for high-quality N/A wine.

N/A Spirits and Mocktails Are Surging

According to Shanken News Daily, Non-Alcoholic spirits have had “strong gains in the year-to-date through August 2, with non-alcohol spirits volume more than doubling and value up by 67% in NielsenIQ channels.” With all of this growth, we’ve seen more and more brands create innovative non-alcoholic liquor alternatives that mimic traditional spirits. One example is Italian brand Amaretto ADRIATICO, which released its non-alcoholic amaretto liquor, ADRIATICO Zero, in the United States this past fall. For bartenders looking to create mocktail versions of their favorite cocktails, having high-quality N/A spirits available is key.

Beyond strictly spirits, mocktails continue to grow in popularity, and flavor innovation from brands such as Torani (a Double Forte client) makes it easier to make cocktails without the buzz. I recently created a gin and tonic-like mocktail using Torani’s new Flavor of the Year – Forest Pine – and was shocked at how much it tasted like a real cocktail. Paired with the rise of premium N/A spirits, these increasingly convincing mocktails shows just how quickly the non-alcoholic category is evolving and that consumer are ready for sophisticated, alcohol-free options.

A Category to Watch Closely this Year

Reading all these data points about the Non-Alcoholic beverage industry helps demonstrate its growth. But where you really feel it is at bars, restaurants and retail stores. In 2025, many more bar or restaurant now have a dedicated non-alcoholic section on their menu with mocktail offerings, N/A Beers, and if you’re lucky, N/A wines to try. The category is no longer a trend – it’s an important and fast-growing part of the beverage industry and those ignoring it are leaving money on the table.

Beyond Dry January, or the sober curious, Non-Alcoholic beverages appeals to wellness-minded consumers and those looking to moderate consumption. As more major brands invest in the category and new, innovative brands release N/A offerings, the industry’s quality and variety of offerings will only accelerate in 2026. 

Launching a new non-alcoholic beverage this year? Double Forte is here to help. Cheers!

By Alexis (Karis) Dowling