MailOnline reveals that wine is set to overtake beer as the most popular alcoholic drink in Britain.
New data shows that adults drink an average of 39 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and Merlot per year.
Since the 1960s, alcohol consumption has increased twelvefold, partly because women drink more alcohol.
Meanwhile, beer consumption has more than halved since its heyday fifty years ago, from the equivalent of 276 pints a year to 110.
Industry experts today claimed that wine was a ‘long time coming’ to overtake beer as Britain’s most popular drink. Others suggested that the growing popularity of spirits could also see it overtake beer in the near future.
Figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show how much alcohol is consumed through different drinks.
The average Briton aged 15 or over consumes 9.75 litres of pure alcohol per year.
Converted, this contains 3.55 liters of alcohol from wine.
For comparison, in the early 1960s the figure was 0.3 l. This equates to almost three bottles.
In 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available, we consumed 3.12 liters of alcohol from beer.
It is believed that the increasing popularity of wine is partly due to the fact that women are increasingly drinking wine.
“In 1970, most alcohol was consumed as beer and in pubs, while wine was expensive and not widely available,” according to the British charity Alcohol Change in the ‘UK trends’ section of its website.
But the growth of the wine sector means that ‘we now consume the majority of our consumption as wine, mostly at home’, the report said.
Thanks to a huge industry-wide campaign, there are now countless types of wine available in supermarkets, with some selling for as little as £3 a bottle.
The size of wine glasses has also increased dramatically in recent years, meaning wine drinkers are unknowingly drinking more.
Meanwhile, beer consumption has fallen from 7.85 litres in the late 1970s to 3.12 litres in 2020, the latest figures from the WHO show.
This is partly due to a general decline in the amount of alcohol Britons are drinking, and the so-called ‘flight to quality’ to replace volume drinking.
In addition, low-alcohol pints and alcohol-free beer are expanding rapidly in the UK.
Bert Blaize, former head sommelier at Michelin-starred Clove Club restaurant in east London and The Mandrake Hotel, said it was long overdue for wine to replace beer at the top.
He said: ‘There has been a lot of work done by the industry to make wine more accessible. Previously it was seen as snobbish.
‘I love beer, but wine is a superior product. It can take you to another place, country or time, and beer can’t do that.’
Mr Blaize added: ‘Maybe women are more concerned with what they taste and not just going to the pub and stuffing themselves with beer. It’s more about the lunch and the wine on the table.’
Madalena Moreira of Encirc, a UK-based bottler and glassmaker that tests more than 15,000 wine samples a year, added: ‘Beer is still being drunk, but we no longer live in an age where we go to the pub for a pint after work. It could be a glass of wine or a gin and tonic.’
Spirits have also become increasingly popular in recent years, partly because more people are drinking drinks at home during the pandemic.
In 2020, people in the UK consumed an average of 2.56 litres of pure alcohol from spirits – the equivalent of 128 double G&Ts. This was a record high, according to WHO data.
For comparison, in 1990 there were 108 double G&Ts and in 1979 there were 120.
With the current trend, rum, vodka and gin could overtake beer in the coming years, both in the home pub and in the nightlife.
The NHS recommends that people drink no more than 14 ‘units’ of alcohol – about six glasses of wine or pints of beer – per week.
They warn that long-term excessive drinking increases the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, liver disease, cancer, depression and dementia.
But leading experts have been arguing about the dangers of moderate drinking for decades.
Some studies show that a glass of wine or a pint of beer a day can prevent a number of diseases.
