The Wine Brats

A quaint 1990s project to get 20somethings to drink more wine

Photo stolen from The Drinks Business

“Wine sales in the U.S. last year tumbled approximately 6% from 2023, according to data from the industry data group SipSource. The drop is the latest in a long-term decline in wine demand in restaurants, bars and stores that some are calling an “existential threat” to the industry.” —NBC News

If you’re in the wine business in America, in 2025, you’re probably freaking out. Sure, it might have been a killer idea in another decade, to retire from a lucrative career as a dentist or an oncologist, buy a vineyard, put in some grapes, hire a winemaker, and launch yourself into the viniculture stratosphere. But right now, according to the numbers, you’re kind of fucked.

Younger Americans are drinking less than previous generations. Experts say there are a few reasons: 1) more younger people prefer premixed beverages; 2) more people are drinking nonalcoholic bevvies, and 3) legal pot. More than 4 in 10 Americans now think alcohol is unhealthy. Even France is drinking less wine, from three bottles a week per capita in 1960, to a measly one bottle a week in 2023. Last month, 4.5 million French people voluntarily abstained for “dry January.” This is France!

What isn’t surprising is that the U.S. wine industry panicked about all of this way back in the 1990s. A marketing push arose from the 20something demographic, to promote wine drinking to their own generation. It didn’t work. But it was pretty hilarious to witness at the time. This story about the Northern California “Wine Brats” organization, and Wine-X magazine, first appeared in SF Weekly in February 1999.

Despite a driving rain, 50 or so healthy specimens of young professionals confidently saunter into the Za Stop pizza parlor South of Market. Tables laden with stemware and white plastic buckets await them.

The room fills with that unmistakable strain of prominent chins, noses, and foreheads achieved only through the careful breeding of good stock. There are more women than men, traveling in twos and threes, out for a few laughs with the gal pals. They’re not here solely to meet a nice, well-off guy with a sensitive palate and sunny live-work loft. But you never know.

Most in this blinding white crowd have already cleared the preliminary hurdles of young adulthood—a 401(k), a four-wheel drive, that first cappuccino machine. Now they can afford to fret and fuss over another accelerated lifestyle accessory: wine.

They have come with their Palm Pilots and pressed jeans to the January gathering of the San Francisco chapter of Wine Brats, a nonprofit group founded by the twentysomething sons of Northern California winery owners. Bankrolled by some of the state’s biggest vintners, Wine Brats is the industry’s bid to make lifetime customers out of young adults—a sort of freshman orientation for the oenologically challenged.

For 10 bucks a meeting, the Brats get to sample several vintages, listen to a winemaker extol each bottle, and soak it all up with a five-course meal. On this night, the line backs out the door, delayed when one young woman needs change for a crisp $100 bill.

Once everyone is seated, Tammy Dubose addresses the room. Chapter president for three years, Dubose enthusiastically welcomes newcomers, and then delivers a stern announcement. ”If I have any destruction,” she warns, “I’m gonna ask you not to come back.” It’s a bad sign when a wine tasting opens with a lecture.

Dubose then regales the crowd with descriptions of upcoming Brat events. There will be a “Wine Rave” on July 23. And, of course, the annual “Bottle of the Bay” in August, when the San Francisco and East Bay chapters meet on Angel Island for a wine tasting, rope pull, and barbecue.

“It’s gonna be an all-out wine war!” she exclaims.

Dubose asks all the new members to stand for the special Wine Brats “Dance of Joy,” which she demonstrates. The neophytes join in, clapping and jiving as the rest of the crowd laughs and whistles.

This, clearly, is not the proper way to behave at a wine tasting.

To a seasoned connoisseur, in fact, what the Wine Brats do constitutes nothing less than high treason, the arrogant, willful dismantling of a carefully contrived social order.

At a proper tasting, rows of jowly sommeliers with ear hair and starched collars sniff, swirl, and spit their way through the world’s finest wines. Between vintages, they cleanse their Sacred Palates with pieces of bread. White-coated assistants unobtrusively wheel away trays of spit-bucket detritus, as the Palates murmur about acid percentage, tannin content, and flavor combinations of various woods, fruits, and confections.

Sacred Palates do not need to be admonished about breaking the crystal. And they certainly do not jiggle to the Dance of Joy in a pizza parlor.

Millions of dollars, and decades, have been spent cultivating the image of the state’s wine industry, trying to convince the world that California wines are not grog for unschooled barbarians.

Then along come the Wine Brats, unimpressed by Sacred Palate rituals that have been refined over generations. The Brats are not about to don white lab coats and spit into a bucket with a bunch of old men.

Young adults and their elders often annoy each other just on general principle. But passion is raging in the clash between the Palates and the Brats, a tussle to see whose pretensions will govern wine culture.

This, apparently, is what happens when people with too much money fight over something of too little meaning. But it makes a good show for the rest of us.

The Za Spot continues to fill with late arrivals. Two young men in suits and ties slide into a table. One has never before been to a Brats event, the other has attended one. Asked if he plans to attend the upcoming Valentine’s Day party, Suit No. 2 demurs.

“Let me check my e-mail,” he says, reaching into a suit pocket and producing a sheaf of messages, laser-printed and neatly stapled. Unfolding the stack, he flips through it briefly, then suddenly lets it drop to the table—no can do!—and announces, with a helpless shrug, “Ah, I’m gonna be in New York.”

In the middle of the room, Dubose is introducing the night’s special guest, Aaron Heck. Heck’s family has owned the Korbel champagne winery since 1954, and it has provided the wines for the evening.

“I’m proud to be here tonight in support of Wine Brats,” declares the dapper 27-year-old, sporting not only an immaculate two-day growth of beard, but also a tremendous, almost surreal haircut, with Tom Cruise-like locks rappelling down his forehead. “I like them because they make wine unpretentious.”

Korbel has sent Heck and his haircut to the city with cases of wine to bolster the Brats’ effort. His father has endorsed the Brats since their beginnings, Heck says, and continues pledging some of Korbel’s money and support for the group.

After a few wines are tasted—gulped, actually—the heir to America’s largest champagne supplier clinks his massive gold ring against a glass, and the unruly obediently calm down. They’ve all graduated from good schools. They know how to follow the rules.

“We’re going to try the champagne chardonnay now,” smiles Heck

“Yay!” cries someone.

The Haircut walks into the middle of the room and hoists up another effort from the Korbel empire. “This is very user-friendly,” he says. “It’s exciting, fun, fantastic. Please try, and enjoy. I’m sure you will.”

As the Brats sip and chat, Heck returns to the counter, and stresses the inherent bravery of anyone willing to attend one of these tastings. “Even though the spiel is casual—wear jeans, eat the chips—it’s scary to do. It’s scary to be embarrassed,” he observes.

Much like taking a date to a restaurant, and being self-conscious about one’s wine selection?

The scion nods sagely. “It’s a make it or break it.”

Heck chats a bit longer, and then it’s time to leave. He locates his bosomy, overly tanned assistant, and whisks out the door into the rainy night, leaving behind a dorm-room scene of unspeakable carnage.

Empty bottles and pesto-potato pizza crusts litter the tables. Servers are pouring white wine into glasses still half-full with red. One server walks over to a noisy table and plunks down a full bottle in the middle. The group bursts into cheers. More free wine!

The plastic spitting buckets have all been shoved aside, unused. Asked why, a Korbel rep shrugs.

“We just put ’em out in case people are driving home. Hopefully, people are takin’ cabs or Muni, so they can just knock ’em back.”

The Wine Brats see themselves as an antidote for the California wine industry’s pretension, but the state’s reputation has not always been elitist.

During Prohibition, most wineries either went underground or shut down completely. Vineyards were neglected, and equipment deteriorated. After Repeal, the first wines to emerge from California vineyards were unquestionably substandard.

People not only drank them anyway, they chugged the stuff like pirates. This coarse attitude worried winemakers, suggests veteran wine critic Jerry Mead. The vintners started adding elements to give their wines a more upscale appeal—distinctively shaped bottles, elegant labels, personalized corks. The industry tried to distance itself from the heathen lowlife guzzlers, and issue a neener-neener to the Europeans, by showing that California wines could be world-class.

This aesthetic continued through the 1960s and ’70s, a period of great expansion in the industry. Upscale wine magazines were launched, and there evolved the Sacred Palates, critics and aficionados who perpetuated wine’s mystique.

At the same time, professionals like physicians and bankers were retiring from their jobs and buying vineyards. Wine wasn’t merely an agricultural business to these gentlemen farmers, it was a labor of love, a work of art, an object of obsession. This passionate interest in the product created interesting wines. People sought out not only the wines, but also their maverick creators. Those strong-headed winery owners egotistical enough to believe their own hype ascended to the level of movie stars, with starry-eyed fans asking for autographs and hanging on their every word.

Fermented grape juice achieved a bizarre status as the nectar of the gods. While Europeans still serve wine as a normal part of a meal, in the United States collectors frantically bid for bottles at auction, and preserve their favorite labels in scrapbooks.

According to the San Francisco-based Wine Institute, the state now boasts between 700 and 800 wineries, providing the country with the vast majority of its varietal wine. In 1998, the U.S. consumed 532 million gallons of wine, a number that has steadily climbed for the past five years. Wine drinkers are consuming more wine, per person, than ever before, about 1.95 gallons annually. But there are fewer drinkers. The nation’s total volume of wine consumption actually peaked in 1986, the heyday of wine coolers and fruity-tasting pseudo-wines.

Until recently, wineries didn’t consider the youth market worth the bother of pursuing. But some are now beginning to reverse that opinion. With a strong 1990s economy, twentysomethings have more money than ever these days, and drinking is once again trendy. Wineries worry that if they don’t get young adults imbibing wine early, future business might take a nose dive.

Concern over this gap in the wine market led to the formation of the Wine Brats.

Official Wine Brats legend tells of Jeff Bundschu (Gundlach-Bundschu Winery), Mike Sangiacomo (Sangiacomo Vineyards), and Jon Sebastiani (Viansa Winery) returning home to Sonoma after graduating college in 1993, and rejoining their family wine businesses. Stunned that their peers weren’t drinking wine—perhaps because most of their parents didn’t own wineries—the three vowed to make the beverage more interesting to people their own age. They staged raids on local restaurants, pestering customers and asking why the diners weren’t having wine with their meals. Like a joke that wouldn’t die, the idea of a wine advocacy group aimed at the young kept perpetuating itself, and eventually evolved into a formal organization.

The Wine Brats title sounds harmless enough, like pink-faced guys with untucked shirts spiking the punch at a Fairmont Hotel Cotillion Ball. Depending on which story you believe, the name was either derived from the three mouthing off to their families about their peers not drinking wine; a last-minute decision on a name just before their first media interview; or a clever play on the Brat Pack label, devised by somebody’s family winery publicity person.

The three founders began throwing Wine Brats parties throughout the Bay Area. Early events consisted of seminars on how to match wines with popcorn and Doritos, with videos of Happy Days playing in the background. Taken with the idea, and no doubt already acquainted with the founders’ families, the Korbel, Beringer, and Kenwood wineries kicked in small amounts of cash to help finance the venture—with an eye toward some of this mysterious youth market.

Writer and PR person Joel Quigley got involved with Wine Brats in 1994. Realizing the group needed financing, Quigley drafted a plan to present to investors. The following year, Wine Brats received $66,000 from major wineries, enough to take the organization to a national level. Quigley, now the group’s executive director, says Wine Brats has received over $1 million in hard cash and in-kind support from wineries since then, and this year’s annual budget exceeded $335,000.

Now, from Wine Brats’ national headquarters in an office in Santa Rosa, Quigley oversees a six-person staff and coordinates administrative needs. The three founders have time only to attend board of directors’ meetings, with Jeff Bundschu as president. Chapter presidents from across the country regularly check in with the national office to get their Brats events approved, and communicate with each other through a members-only Web site. Wine Brats now claims over 13,000 members in 45 chapters across the U.S. and Canada. The idea obviously is still growing.

“Everybody was waiting for a person to speak up,” explains Quigley, reclining on his office sofa. “That’s what basically happened. Only in the last year have we figured out how to make it work.”

The biggest chapter is in San Francisco, and its success must be attributed to a six-foot-tall, motorcycle-riding fitness trainer named Tammy Dubose.

Because her father is French, says Dubose, she grew up in a cosmopolitan household that appreciated good wine and food. But she wanted to know more about wine. In 1996, she attended a wine class in the city. As she sat in class, the atmosphere struck her as elitist and self-important. When somebody gave her flak for being both African-American and interested in wine, she got fed up and walked out. Not long thereafter, she picked up a magazine article about Wine Brats, checked out its Web site, liked what the group was up to, and immediately wanted to help out. She e-mailed a note saying, “I want to be your leader.”

Quigley and the Brats responded, “And our leader you shall be.”

Dubose’s first event as San Francisco chapter president was unorthodox by any standards—a motorcycle ride up to Gundlach-Bundschu’s vineyard for a party and camp-out. Other events fell into place, from a Valentine’s Day “blowout” to the annual Angel Island competition and an upcoming Bacchus idea with slave girls. Dubose lists her age as “on the cusp of 30,” and says she receives no payment from the Brats for her work.

With cheerleaders like Dubose signing on, Brats founders have created a gold mine, a savvy marketing gimmick disguised as a wine youth movement. While kids are gulping the grape and dancing in pizza parlors, the brains behind the operation can rest assured that their futures in the wine business are secure. They won’t have to go out and get jobs, because another generation is being primed to continue buying the family wares.

The Brats continue to host tastings and visit college campuses, and just finished their first book, A Wine Brats Guide to Living With Wine. Their latest brainstorm is something called a Wine Rave, a real-life version of an online wine chat room. Instead of the Ecstasy hits and bottled water of the more widely known youth raves, Wine Rave promoters plan to serve gourmet pasta and glasses of pinot noir, and throw in a fashion show, wine auction, live music, and techno DJs—all, of course, simulcast on the Internet. The Brats will launch their San Francisco Wine Rave July 23 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

“San Francisco is gonna rock!” gushes Dubose. “If you’re not at this, you’re not anywhere! We’re gonna have the most cutting-edge artists available! It’s so exciting! Twenty-five hundred people—huge!”

Yerba Buena may rock. It may even sell out. People may dance, drink good wines, eat gourmet food, and exchange business cards. A few might even engage in frottage around the corner of the building. It could be the most memorable night of a Brat’s young life.

But some in the industry blanch at the steps being taken to lure youths to wine.

“Concentrating on the 20 to 35 age group is beating your head against the wall,” says Santa Ana wine retailer Ron Loutherback. “Let’s face it, Gen-X numbers are not as large as baby boomer numbers. The 40 to 55 age group has more money, and they already know what beer tastes like.”

Dan Berger, a nationally syndicated wine columnist for WineToday.com, is more generous in his assessment:

“Getting into a discipline, the first things you do are more loose and casual. The Wine Brats have hit on a practical, lackadaisical attitude about judging,” Berger says. “Wine snobs don’t like this approach. Most of the wine publications are dedicated to verifying images, upholding tradition, and giving consumers as much validity for high-priced wines as they need or want. It is completely unfashionable to talk about a $50 wine in a disparaging tone. Young people appreciate someone coming out and saying, ’This is swill.’ ”

But Berger is puzzled by the demographics of the Brats. “Do they get thrown out when they turn 30?” he asks.

The Sacred Palates generally consider Wine Brats to be “a good idea run amok,” as one puts it. But their utter disdain is reserved for the Brats-affiliated magazine, called Wine-X.

Much like theater and film, the wine industry depends upon publications and critics to generate interest in the product. Wineries continually submit their output to magazines for review, unabashedly tailoring vintages to pander to the specific tastes of the judging Sacred Palates. If a wine receives a good rating in a prestigious magazine, sales directly reflect the praise.

Ads for the wine might then trot out the magazine’s ranking, perhaps accompanied by a few zesty adjectives from a Palate. Publications surround these do-or-die reviews with articles that explore the arcane, fetishistic minutiae of wine culture, debating the complexities of Maryland mushroom recipes, or collectible French corkscrews from the turn of the century. Readers check out what’s new in the industry, read the reviews, and add to their collections accordingly. This is how it’s been done for decades.

Most prominent among the wine press, Wine Spectator circulates a quarter-million copies each issue, 18 issues per year, the largest such publication in the country. Published by Marvin Shenken, the same man who foists Cigar Aficionado onto the reading public, Spectator represents the pinnacle of cultivated wine pretension. Glossy and oversized, its pages packed with reviews, columns, and plenty of advertising, the journal can claim the title of the bible of the wine industry. Inside its Opera Plaza office suite on Van Ness Avenue, West Coast Editor Jeff Morgan monitors the ups and downs of California’s wine output. Although Morgan says many young people read the publication, the target readership is obviously much older and more affluent.

Disgusted with this old-boy approach, two years ago wine consultant and Wine Brats member Darryl Roberts launched Wine-X magazine from the ashes of a trade newsletter. Its subhead reads, “Wine, Food and an Intelligent Slice of Vice.” Many contributors are also Wine Brats. Although somewhat behind the Gen-X zeitgeist, the rowdy newcomer’s splashy graphics and smartass tone caught people’s attention, and the magazine was greeted with either a sigh of relief or a snort of disgust.

Roberts caused controversy with his first issue by running a cover photo of a young woman’s bare tattooed abdomen, and the headline “Sex, Wine, and Rock and Roll.” As a favor to Roberts, the statewide Wine Club retail-store chain mailed his first issue out to portions of its newsletter subscription list. Response was immediate: Over 100 customers called the store, indignant that such garbage was delivered to their mailboxes. Feedback was so virulent that the Wine Club ran a public apology to customers in its next newsletter.

Wine-X has slowly trickled into the wine mainstream. Readers who take the time to read the small typefaces are either drawn to or repelled by the content, especially Roberts’ snide method of reviewing wines. Most magazines and reviewers use a 100-point rating system. Wine-X mocks this by using three X’s to rate a wine: One X means “Gets It Done,” two signifies “Killer Kine,” and three X’s indicate “Exceptionally Cool.” The one-liner descriptions are equally glib. A Chilean cabernet is described as “Imagine Wesley Snipes in tight leather pants at a chili cook-off.” A Russian River Valley chardonnay becomes “The Village People eating caramel-covered apples.”

Critics have called it a “Beavis and Butt-head” approach to wine journalism, singling out in particular the Wine-X description of one vintage: “Tastes like Brad Pitt stepping out of the shower.” This sentence caused such a stir that Roberts was driven to devote an entire editorial to dissecting his own review, explaining why a wine quite naturally could be seen as tasting like a wet, naked actor with a shaved chest.

Of course, this editorial defense was then itself endlessly discussed. After two years of publishing, Wine-X claims a 40,000 circulation, though most copies are given away. Roberts, who appears to be about 40 years old, says he has yet to turn a profit, but expects to be in the black in another year.

Between them, the Spectator and Wine-X cover the industry with points of view that couldn’t be more opposing, or more illustrative of the schism between the Brats and the Palates.

Wine Spectator typically runs cover stories on outstanding champagnes, or the two perfect port wines of 1994. Winemakers are portrayed in lush color photos, standing proudly in their vineyards. Wine-X typically runs cover stories on Wine Raves or musicians like Tori Amos. Winemakers are photographed playing miniature golf.

Spectator readers write letters to the editor discussing the magazine’s “refreshingly candid coverage of cork” and arguing over synthetic cork substitutes. Wine-X readers write in bitching about why wines are so expensive.

Spectator advertisers run full-page, almost pornographic photos of their bottles, with a few words emphasizing the vineyard’s quality and tradition. Wine-X advertisements feature such slogans as “Classic Look, Rockin’ Taste!”

Occasionally the industry coverage of the two magazines actually overlaps. Both publications recently reviewed a $22 bottle of 1991 vintage Maxus English Cuvee California champagne.

“Rich, up-front aromatics include fresh toast and butterscotch,” wrote Morgan in the Spectator. “On the palate, hazel-nut, lemon-lime and spice make an enticing blend.”

Roberts’ Wine-X comment: “Mr. Toad’s wild ride through a yeast factory.”

“I think [Roberts’] approach is more intended for humor and discussion than he is to seriously critique something,” admits wine columnist Dan Berger. “‘Try this with a cigar.’ I don’t smoke. What am I supposed to do? Ignore the wine?”

“I think Wine-X magazine is impossible to read, whatever age you are,” states Jerry Mead, author of the long-running “Mead on Wine” column. “The way those pages are laid out, I can’t follow the story. I’m not sure what the content is. I’m not very impressed. Whether they’re accomplishing their goal, I don’t know.”

From his perch at the Spectator, Morgan delicately addresses what he sees as the problem of Wine-X:

“I don’t find that giving a wine an X rating reflects my values. I think it sends a confusing message that doesn’t necessarily have much to do with wine.”

Roberts will have none of that. “These guys are 107 years old,” he says, clearly delighted to irritate the Old Guard. “[Wine-X] is not written for Jerry Mead, it’s written for consumers. Jeff Morgan’s an asshole. Better not quote me on that. Wine Spectator watches what we do. They want to keep it a beverage for the rich and famous. Keep it on a pedestal. They’re writing for themselves. They’re afraid of having an elitist image and nobody’s gonna gravitate toward it.”

Wine Brats and Wine-X claim the industry has completely ignored young consumers, who instead are choosing beer, vodka, and scotch. If the kids don’t switch to wine soon, they insist, the wineries are in for a steep slide when the older generation dies off. It’s time to wake up and smell the bouquet.

But the Abbie Hoffman-style rabble-rousing, the parties and Wine Raves, the interviews with Sammy Hagar, the pretension-poking irreverence, hasn’t necessarily worked. True, the Brats are drinking wines and having a good time, Wine-X is receiving free bottles for review every day, and the Brats founders are getting their future customers hooked early.

But so far, none of it appears to be making a difference.

People in their 20s have never been big consumers of wine, and statistics say they probably never will be. According to the Wine Institute, the 20 to 29 age group has never added much to the total volume of wine consumed, hovering around a mere 4 percent of the market. Consumers don’t generally develop a Sacred Palate of their own until they’re in their 40s. The largest group of U.S. wine drinkers remains the over-60 crowd, which consumes more than 36 percent of all table wine sold.

This vast split in ages was evident at a recent daylong zinfandel event held at Fort Mason, sponsored by Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP). Over 5,500 grape geeks roamed the aisles with engraved wine glasses, tasting their way through the wares from 180 wineries, mostly Californian.

The majority of attendees looked to be, at minimum, in their 40s. The few Gen-Xers wandering the floor were completely outnumbered by their elders. The Wine-X booth was stuck back in a corner, a footnote to the event. At $45 a ticket, anyone in his 20s who was present was probably on a business tab.

Asked about the Wine Brats movement, a small group of young wine fans snorted. “A lot of people find them annoying,” said one representative of a wine distributor, with a smile. “They certainly don’t speak for everybody.”

One wine marketer wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to taste Brad Pitt stepping out of the shower.”

U.S. WINE INDUSTRY STATISTICS AS OF 2024

Total gallons consumed annually: 899 million

Number of California wineries: nearly 5,000 

Generation Z: 5-6% of total wine sales (45% have never had an alcoholic beverage)

WINE BRATS AND WINE-X UPDATE

Jeff Bundschu is president of Gundlach Bundschu winery.

Mike Sangiacomo is a partner with Sangiacomo Family Wines.

Jon Sebastiani is now founder and managing partner of the private equity firm Sonoma Brands Capital.

Darryl Roberts founded SNAP Cats, a Sonoma County organization which rescues special needs cats from all over the world.

Wine-X magazine folded in the 2000s, was later sold to an early subscriber, and relaunched online.

TRADITIONAL WINE MEDIA

Wine columnist Jerry Mead died in 2000.

Wine Spectator editor Jeff Morgan is now a winemaker in Berkeley.

Wine Spectator magazine is still publishing, with verified circulation of 400,000.