Enjoy Now Wines, LLC, based in Sonoma, California, announced last week the official launch of its new community of ‘young sommeliers.’ This new initiative is designed to serve as a transformative industry catalyst aimed at fostering meaningful connections between younger generations, specifically Gen Z and Millennials, and the wine industry.
Enjoy Now Wines™ set up a panel of twenty professional somms in the same age bracket of these demographic profiles (21 – 44 years old) to get young people excited to try and enjoy wine now. These young sommeliers (“somms”) look like, sound like, and have the same life experiences as the target with one significant exception: each of the somms are credentialed by a leading wine educational institution and currently use that certification in their full-time careers. The young somm panel represents 8 different states and includes gender, ethnic and lifestyle diversity.
CEO & Founder, Dennis Sones, stated, “Since 2016, we have seen ups and downs through the past decade but have never seen the wine industry hurting as much as it is right now. Excess capacity, the high cost of labor, and self-inflicted tariff wounds are market forces significantly contributing to the hurt right now. But another key reason is that the traditional consumer cohorts of Baby Boomers are consuming less wine or completely leaving the category. At the same time, younger consumers are not entering the wine category.” Wine industry research indicates that younger consumers, known as Gen Z and Millennials, are attracted to alternatives that are perceived to be more interesting, cool and relevant, including craft beer, craft spirits, seltzers, non-alcoholic, and cannabis. Mr. Sones continued, “Some individual brands hope to attract Gen Z and Millennial consumers by launching brands/sub-brands that target their taste-palate with sweeter, fruit flavors in their wines. Still, others are trying to attract this audience through association with organic/sustainability. We are hopeful that these vertical strategies will help individual brands but we’re of the mind that the entire industry needs a new “high tide” that lifts all boats by appealing to the fun and shared experience that these consumers desire and show off in social media.”
Enjoy Now Wines uses a new, proprietary method for evaluating wines that resonates with younger consumers. When 5 Somms Say So™ (agree to endorse a wine), we promote that result in social media and on our website. The proprietary method was developed with the consultation of several somms on our panel as well as two leading Master Somms.
Enjoy Now Wines has a proven and impressive panel of young somms, which Mr. Sones calls “our industry rock stars” who join the other industry rock stars at the front end of the process, the incredible wine makers. The evaluation process is proven, and more wineries are engaging with the panel to conduct evaluations. “Our sincere desire is to get these young industry rock stars to put a spotlight on wine and position it as fun and the perfect shared experience. That naturally connects to the Gen Z and Millennial consumers who enjoy sharing what they are doing, where they are doing it, and what makes these things a great memorable experience. We can do all that with wine!”
For further details: https://www.enjoynowwines.com/
