The Wine Industry Is Having An Identity Crisis

A new generation of winemakers is suiting up for change while traditionalists clutch their pearls and shout "Neo-Prohibition."

The wine industry seems to be divided into two camps. The younger generation of winemakers appears to be embracing the shift in consumer habits and looking to the future, while an older, less flexible generation, is riding the river of denial and keeping a death grip on the past.

The concept of Dry January, one that a whopping 30% of Americans say they were on board with this year, isn’t finding much support within the booze industry. While beer and spirits leaders have remained relatively quiet on the movement, at least from a PR perspective, the wine sector has chosen another route. Traditionalists have also chosen a spokesperson it would seem in Wine Bible author and dry month naysayer, Karen MacNeil.

With the rise of the modern sobriety movement and the astronomical boom of the non-alcoholic beverage sector, neither of which much of the vino world has been willing to properly acknowledge, wine is facing a reckoning and so are the industry loyalists who’ve made careers out of upturned noses and long stem glasses. In a Winespeed blog post from MacNeil, she addresses the recent advisory from the U.S. surgeon general and warns of the “Insidious Dangers of Dry January.” Ms. MacNeil has a habit of equating all people advocating for more mindful consumption and touting the benefits of a sober or sober-curious lifestyle with “anti-alcohol dogmatists,” or “Neo-Prohibitionists,” a myopic and misleading affiliation. She fears that her beloved vino and all of its communal and cultural properties are under attack in the name of moral superiority. You may remember the rebuttal campaign to Sober October that I wrote about last fall, Come Over October, spearheaded by MacNeil, and supported by the Congressional Wine Caucus. The driving message of Come Over October (and perhaps MacNeil’s personal motto) is that wine, unlike other boozy beverages, is more than alcohol-it’s an important piece of social culture and without it we’d lose the ability to connect and share as a community. I’ve set out to understand the mindset of wine-lifers like Karen who are behaving as if their backs are against the wall, as if disparaging a modern wellness movement is the only way to survive.

In a Substack post titled, A Single Drop and The End of Pleasure?, Karen worries that moderate drinking is being de-normalized and wine drinkers across the planet are being marginalized. She writes, crestfallen and hopeless, that this dry movement is asking us to “define ourselves by what we denounce.” Are we beginning to sense the irony? It feels like some wine folks have defined themselves by the ethanol in their glass and I can imagine the discombobulation that would accompany the crumbling of that identity. No one is disputing the artistry of winemaking, the culture of socializing over interesting beverages, or the right of an individual to consume as much alcohol as they’d like. Folks like me just don’t drink booze anymore for a litany of reasons and won’t be able to continue enjoying wine if we aren’t given quality, non-alc options. We aren’t modern day “Prohis,” eager to lock up your favorite vice. We’re modern men and women focused on personal development, thirsty for a new narrative. We don’t believe MacNeil’s story of alcohol as the divine connector. We know that story is just something we were sold and we’ve turned the page. The wine industry feels us leaving them behind and like a discarded lover has begun lashing out.

On a more promising note, there are some people in Napa (and beyond) who actually understand the situation and the power of the pivot. Brook Winery of Amity, Oregon gets it. The female-led winery announced last week that it would be offering non-alcoholic wine flights. The winery’s manager, Jennifer Cossey, told Sip Magazine that she’d been having fun sampling non-alcoholic wines and deciding which to serve up to her curious and alcohol-free guests. “We have made it part of our mission to bring the best of the N/A wine world to our tasting room,” Cossey said, and “want everyone who visits to feel like they can sit back in one of our cozy spaces and enjoy something delicious.” This. Is. It. This is how you stay in the wine game in 2025. Another forward-thinking vintner, Grant Hemingway of Libby Wines, has recently introduced two new NA sparkling wines to the market that are set to be available in Sprouts Farmers Markets across the country sometime in April. Hemingway says he “wanted to capture everything consumers love about wine—minus the alcohol — but also deliver a true wine-drinking experience,” in a press release to Wine Industry Advisor. Hemingway understands that it’s about choices and people are choosing to drink less alcohol but not compromising on the quality of their beverages or social lives. Still, the rest of the world is lightyears ahead of Napa. From New Zealand to Austria to the heart of Bordeaux, wine producers are getting the memo-NA wine is not a fad or passing trend, it’s a necessary response to our current reality. The perfect storm is brewing and to deny its impending arrival will spell the demise of those not willing to innovate or adjust their sails. One starts to question the stubbornness we’re seeing from old timers in California, the resistance to reinvention. The solution to their growing problem seems so obvious. Why are they refusing to engage in productive conversations that could move the needle?

What Karen MacNeil has accomplished in her career is notably impressive. I’ve spent hours pouring over interviews and her own writings, piecing together a more complete picture of the woman who seems to think that I, and other proudly alcohol-free women, lack the cultural awareness and culinary appreciation to understand why alcoholic wine simply must remain on every dinner table in America. Karen MacNeil began as a New York City journalist and in an interview on The Wine Industry Network tells the story of selling her first piece to The Village Voice for thirty dollars about butter, which put her on the map as a food writer. However, she found herself fascinated by wine and the challenge that came with learning the language, decoding the mystery of regions and their terroirs, and breaking into the city’s inner circle of wine writers. She secured an invite to the male dominated club on one condition, that she not speak. She obliged. For five years she listened and learned and then she took that knowledge and turned it into the bestselling wine book in America, a holy guide, The Wine Bible.

It’s fair to say that MacNeil has made wine, along with her one-woman-army-rise to the top of Wine Mountain, her entire personality. When that hard fought image and its relevance becomes threatened by a global wellness movement that’s picking up steam by the hour, a person might feel they have no choice but to discredit that movement. I empathize with her anger. She spent years of her life muzzled, unable to ask her own burning questions or add her own commentary, silenced by men who thought she had no right sniffing around the serious business of wine. My stomach turns to think that this woman successfully pulled off a carefully orchestrated coup d’état only to find herself back in the good ole boys’ cage yet again forty years later, albeit a gilded one. She seems to be defending her right to remain there-but what is she protecting?

The establishment is holding onto a thin veil of elitist sophistication, believing that the darling of high-class booze should be exempt from the medical and cultural reckoning that alcohol is facing. It’s clear that the wine industry refuses to concede that wine drinkers can become drunks too, that no amount of money or status or varietal knowledge can ensure a person won’t fall victim to the idea of wine as an evergreen accessory to high society. This denial will prove catastrophic and ultimately spell irrelevance for Big Wine and its outdated mentality. Their tone is snobbish and sanctimonious, exhausting to the average person who cares more about putting food on the table than rare vintages. Perhaps, they are just collectively choosing to die on this hill. I can almost respect that-but the industry is bleeding money, vineyards are being ripped up, and the old school image of wine is completely unappetizing to Gen Z. The younger generations are interested in dissolving class divides, not maintaining them. Traditional wine is seen as superfluous and stuffy, out of touch with a modern and forward-thinking population more interested in raising the collective consciousness than a 61’ Bordeaux. The wine industry is failing to grasp the big picture. Americans don’t have a “problem” with wine, wine has a problem with their image. Power and tradition, the crux of this thing, won’t go quietly or willingly and compromise doesn’t appear to be on the table.

It seems, from my research, MacNeil and others like her are defending the booze, not the artistry. Her argument is that wine is more than alcohol, that within the tannins and texture dance life’s most poignant wonderings. None of that magic dies in a masterfully-made dealcoholized wine, especially with innovations to the technology on the horizon. Beautiful wine will go on being made, with or without support from Karen MacNeil. “Can You Come Over?” Karen asks in her announcement of Come Over October on Substack last year, lamenting over the media coverage of the sobriety movement and the “micro inanities” found in posts on social media pages, presumably like mine. While a lot of Karen’s words make my head spin and poke the bear (the bear is me), this quote from the “Come Over” piece genuinely reveals the lack of awareness and gross incomprehension of the entire industry. “As we all know, if all you wanted was alcohol, there are cheaper and faster ways to get it than by having a glass of wine with dinner.” As if wine should be removed from the conversation around substance abuse completely. As if there is no way a person who can afford to buy nice wine would allow themselves to become prisoner to it. Karen herself has said “You don’t drink a great wine, a great wine drinks you,” and that “Once you’re on that gerbil wheel, you don’t ever get off.” I can’t disagree with her there.

I think MacNeil is missing a golden opportunity to scale yet another mountain. She could help. As a respected and sought after wine critic and communications expert she could lead the conversation from the industry side on the importance of innovation. She could take her love for the art of winemaking and encourage producers to create high quality vintages that reflect the times we live in, that keep the conversation about wine going as Americans drink less booze. I know from reliable sources that MacNeil has hosted NA wine tastings in her St. Helena office, even praising some varietals and taking detailed notes. Why hasn’t she written about them? Why does she continue to fear monger about Neo-Prohibition when she’s met with non-alc industry leaders who’ve made it clear that their mission is simply to provide worthy options to sophisticated non-drinkers? The wine industry claims to promote moderation of their product and drinking “responsibly,” but that is exactly the thing their representatives are currently demonizing. What is Dry January or Sober October if not an attempt to rebalance our relationship with alcohol and recalibrate, perhaps steer the ship back on track after a little overindulgence during the holidays or summer travels? If the calls for moderation from Karen MacNeil and other wine leaders were earnest they’d be propping up the movement and applauding society’s shift towards more wellness.

Why do we need an entire month or two dedicated to normalizing the choice not to drink alcohol? Because when there have been decades dedicated to the opposite message, drink everywhere all the time without ceasing, you start small. As long as people like Karen MacNeil feel the need to tear down and belittle the efforts of people like me and those I represent to better themselves and achieve a greater sense of well-being and purpose, I will be here to offer my own rebuttal. As long as we see Mad Men with their Canadian Club affections and Olivia Pope chugging glasses of red, we also need to see powerful men and women doing the hard things sober-it’s called contrast. No one that I know is calling for prohibition or the downfall of the wine industry. Most card-carrying members of the modern sobriety movement simply want to start hearing the full story about alcohol told by its peddlers and appreciate the efforts of these businesses to sell something they can purchase and enjoy with their friends, too.

This is a generational battle. On one hand we have millennial-led wine houses and progressive publications eager to embrace the sober-curious crowd, jumping into action and planning for the future. On the other hand, we have the boomer traditionalists, clutching their pearls as they warn of Neo-Prohibition, hellbent on preserving the way it’s always been and clinging to the past. The younger generations are just more open to reinvention. We do it all the time. We change our minds about the marriages and careers we’re in at thirty and start over. We go back to school at thirty-five and start new businesses. We quit drinking alcohol at forty and create a brand new identity for ourselves outside of the booze culture we spent years swimming through. The landscape of the alcohol industry is being restructured around a seismic shift in the way society views booze. This is not a wave of change, it’s a tsunami. Napa doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel…but they are going to have to roll with it unless they want to be crushed.