Wine once again the favourite beverage alcohol in France

fter growing by 5% in 2024, wine has resumed its leading position among alcoholic beverages favoured by the French. Popular with 60% of respondents (versus 58% for beer) questioned for the 2024 SoWine Barometer, wine moved ahead of beer which had ranked first in previous surveys.  The Barometer is based on the results of an online survey conducted in December 2023 by Dynata among 1,058 French adults aged between 18 and 65 and representative of the population using the quota method. SoWine partners Sylvain Dadé and Marie Mascré presented the findings by video-conference on March 26, stressing that the study does not yield “market shares or actual till sales figures”, but is based purely on personal statements.

One key takeaway is that women contribute directly to this uptick in popularity for wine, increasing their preference for wine by 7% to 56%. Concurrently with this, their taste for beer declined, though increased for cocktails (by 6% to 42%). “We witnessed both gender and generational skews for these trends”, stressed Dadé. Men continue, quite clearly, to prefer beer (72%) which continues to gain traction (+7%), even though their interest in wine is also growing (by 3% to 64%). Similarly, a preference for wine has grown significantly (+14%) among thirty-somethings (26-35 years old) whilst beer is increasingly popular with the 36-49 age group (+5%). Young people aged 18-25 stated they were increasingly drawn to Champagne (+7%) though maintained their overall preference for beer and cocktails ahead of wine. “What we have seen, though, is that beer remains the most popular drink across the generations”, commented Marie Mascré.