Maybe Millennials Aren’t Drinking Less Wine. Maybe We’re Asking More From It.

There’s been a lot written about millennials and wine. We’re drinking less. We’re buying differently. We aren’t following the same rules as generations before us. And depending on the headline, we may or may not be killing the wine industry.

But I recently read a piece in Wine Enthusiast that offered a different perspective: maybe millennials aren’t walking away from wine at all. Maybe we’re just asking more from it.

We care about quality, where something came from and who made it. We’re interested in the story behind the bottle. And increasingly, we’re looking for something bigger than the transaction itself—we want an experience and a connection.

As I read it, I kept thinking: Yes. This is why Shawn and I joined Finca Los Maza. Not because we had some lifelong dream of getting into the wine business, but because we went to Mendoza, Argentina, and experienced what can happen around wine.

It Was Never Just the Wine

Of course, the wine matters. And the wine at Finca Los Maza is incredible. Truly. But when I think about what drew us to Finca Los Maza, I don’t first think about tasting notes or scores or even a particular bottle.

I think about sitting around a table over an asado that takes hours instead of a meal that takes 30 minutes. I think about campfires and conversations, opening another bottle because no one is quite ready for the night to end. I think about people who started as strangers and somehow, over food and wine and time, became friends.

There is a culture of lingering in Mendoza that is hard to explain until you experience it. And once we did, Shawn and I started wondering: Why don’t we do more of this at home?

Maybe What We’re Craving Is the Lingering

Life in the U.S. is extraordinarily efficient. We optimize our calendars, eat on the go, schedule time with friends weeks in advance and can order almost anything we want to our doorstep the next day. Efficiency has given us a lot, but I think we’ve lost something along the way, too.

We don’t linger very often.

We don’t always sit around the table long after dinner is finished simply because the conversation is good. We don’t always know our neighbors. Gathering together can become another thing that has to fit neatly between everything else we’re supposed to accomplish.

Mendoza showed us a different rhythm. Wine was part of it, certainly, but wine wasn’t really the point. Connection was the point.

That’s one of the reasons the Wine Enthusiast article resonated with me. It describes a generation of wine drinkers who are interested in more than simply accumulating bottles. They’re looking for experiences, stories and meaningful connections—not only with the people they share wine with, but with the people and places behind the wine itself.

That feels very familiar. Because when we came home from Mendoza, we didn’t just want to bring the wine with us. We wanted to bring some of that culture with us.

Less, But Better

Another idea from the article stuck with me: less, but better. Millennials who are serious about wine are increasingly willing to spend more on something meaningful and pay attention to how it was made, where it came from and the story behind it.

I think that extends far beyond wine. We’ve spent decades filling American shelves with products built around scale: more, faster, cheaper. There’s certainly a place for convenience, but I think many of us are beginning to crave the opposite—fewer things, better things, things made with intention.

We want to know where our food came from. We’re interested in the farmer, maker or small business behind what we buy. And when we choose to spend money on something, we want it to be good.

That’s something we’re incredibly proud of with Finca Los Maza. The experience and story might draw you in, but the product still has to stand on its own—and ours does. The wine is exceptional, rooted in a place with an incredible history and winemaking tradition, and very different from the mass-produced products that fill so much of the U.S. market.

For Shawn and me, that combination matters: quality, place, people and story.

Bringing a Little More Mendoza Home

That may be the part of Finca Los Maza that excites us most. We don’t simply want to sell bottles of Argentine wine in the United States. We want to recreate a little bit of what those bottles represent.

We want more long tables and dinners where nobody is checking the clock. More campfires and neighbors becoming friends. More reasons to invite someone over instead of saying, “We should get together sometime.” And ultimately, we’d love to see more of that not only in our own neighborhood, but in communities across the U.S.

Maybe the opportunity for wine isn’t convincing millennials to drink more. Maybe it’s recognizing what many of us are looking for when we do choose to open a bottle: quality over quantity, a story worth knowing, an experience worth sharing and, perhaps most importantly, connection.

That’s what we found in Mendoza. It’s what we found around the table at Finca Los Maza. And it’s a big part of why Shawn and I wanted to be part of bringing it home.

Because sometimes a bottle of wine is just a bottle of wine. But put it on a table with good food, give people enough time and pull up a few more chairs, and it can become something much bigger.