Significantly fewer French people drink wine every day

The number of regular wine drinkers in France is falling fast, with just one in ten still pouring a glass every day, a survey shows.

The report, covering trends in wine consumption between 2015 and 2022, said only 11 percent of respondents reported drinking wine "every day or almost every day."

This is as much as 5% less than in the previous edition of the survey in 2015, the National Committee of the Wine Professions (CNIV) reported.

In 1980, when the first such survey was conducted, about half of France's population drank wine every day or almost every day. The survey is normally held every five years, but in 2020 it was postponed to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The decline in wine drinking comes "in the context of an overall decline in alcohol consumption," said the CNIV survey, produced by polling agency Ipsos.

"A large proportion of people still consume wine, but only occasionally," the report said.

The data points to a growing generation gap, with young people increasingly turning away from wine.

"Regular wine drinkers are disappearing due to generational change," the study said. "Most casual wine drinkers are young people."

About 37% of the French do not drink wine or only drink it on special occasions.

In comparison, 19% of respondents said they never drink any alcohol, up from 15% in 2015.

The survey was conducted by Ipsos in the summer of 2022 among 3,513 people. /BGNES