Wine with Leslie: Young people are drinking less wine — I picked three bottles they should try

We are drinking less as a whole, and younger generations are drinking significantly less, but wine is not dead yet.

I decided to recommend the kind of wines that my younger colleagues (and some older hip ones) love Picture: Alamy

Fri, 01 May, 2026 - 15:06

Leslie Williams has been the Irish Examiner's wine columnist since 2012 and has been reviewing restaurants since 2015.

Is wine drinking out of fashion? The short answer is ‘it depends on who you ask’. Global consumption is certainly down and more traditional wine regions like Bordeaux are really struggling.

Yes we are drinking less as a whole, and younger generations are drinking significantly less, but wine is not dead yet. The customers I see in wine bars like L’Atitude 51, MacCurtain Wine Cellar, Loose Canon and Bar Pez often skew 20 years younger than me and the beginners wine appreciation course that I teach in Rathmines College every January and September always has a high proportion of 20-somethings.