Expert shares 'major concern' over growing threat to wine industry
Good news for public health is often bad news for private profits.
Gallup’s 2025 survey into US adult alcohol consumption revealed a startling decline in the proportion of Americans who drink alcohol.
Younger people, especially women, are pulling back on the ethanol, but older generations are cutting back too.
The Consumption Habits survey, which has been running each year since 1939, found that 54% of US adults self-report alcohol consumption. This is down from a minimum of 60% recorded between 1997 and 2023.
The figure sat at 62% in 2023, dropped to 58% in 2024, and dropped again to 54% in 2025. This is the first time that Gallup has recorded consecutive year-on-year declines, and the 2025 figure is the second-lowest by just one percentage point.
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While this is good news for public health, and potentially also for the rates of violent crime, it’s set off some alarm bells in the booze industry.
Gino Colangelo is President of Colangelo & Partners, one of the US’s top public relations companies for wine, told Forbes: “The wine industry is already dealing with tariffs, a slowing economy, Ozempic, and increased competition from THC, RTD’s and other alternatives to wine,” stated Gino, in an online interview. “So the findings in this recent Gallup report are a cause of major concern.”
Referring to Gallup’s study, he continued: “First, only 54% of American adults report that they drink alcohol. That’s the lowest percentage in 90 years! And second, over 50% of respondents believe that alcohol is bad for one’s health at any level of consumption.”
The USDA, Colangelo said, views ‘moderate’ consumption as two drinks a day for men and one of women, and this was the basis he himself was raised on.
“This represents a dramatic shift,” he said. “However, for those of us who follow the media, it’s not a shock. There’s been an overwhelming anti-wine / alcohol bias in the news the past several years.”
Colangelo noted that Gallup’s study referred to ‘recent research indicating that any level of alcohol consumption may negatively affect health.’
“That bias in research dominates the news, while recent studies that suggest moderate consumption is either neutral or even potentially good for one’s health are ignored,” he said. But, as the president of a wine PR company, this is an unsurprising take.
As to whether the report is a bell tolling for the demise of the alcohol industry, Colangelo said he doesn’t think it’s time to panic.
“I take surveys like this Gallup poll with a grain of salt, as polls can change dramatically given the timing and what people may be reading in the news that day,” he said.
“However, I actually think the Gallup poll may do the wine community a favour by getting us to focus on the challenge of reduced wine consumption and band together to address it.”
Rachael Davis