Ronda Payne
Pouring wine in the Blue Grouse tasting room.
BC wineries are on a roll, as a recent poll found local residents increasingly prefer drinking BC wines over imports.
According to the December survey by Insights West and Will Creative, 58 per cent of BC drinkers prefer wines produced in the province.
And that trend continues to increase.
Forty-one per cent of wine drinkers say they are drinking a higher percentage of local wines than they did five years ago, while only seven per cent are drinking less BC wine.
Another encouraging trend is that Millennials are also starting to discover BC wines, whereas in the past the market for local product was much stronger among the Generation X crowd.
The highest proportion of local wine consumption is among men (59 per cent) and those aged 35 to 54 (62 per cent), but the Millennials are now coming on strong.
The survey found more than half of the respondents aged 19 to 34 now say they are consuming more BC wines than they did five years ago.
There’s also an interesting difference in taste between the Gen X’ers and the Millennials. The older Gen X’ers like their red wines best, while Rosé and white wines are more popular with the younger crowd.