It's Official: Millennials Drink More Wine Than Anyone Else

Wine has this reputation for being a sophisticated, old-people beverage that you move on to after you've spent your flavored vodka-filled youth. But, apparently that's not true, according to a new study that suggests millennials drink more of the boozy grape juice than any other generation.

A new report from the Wine Market Council, in fact, claims millennials alone drink 42% percent of all wine consumed in the US. Let that sink in for a moment. That's almost half the US wine consumption -- and millennials only make up about 26% of the entire population, comprising 83.1 million of the total 318 million-person US population.

In 2015 alone, millennials drank 159.6 million cases of wine, which was more than any other generation. On average, they're drinking wine that's under $20, and consuming 3.1 glasses on a given drinking occasion. That's also more glasses than any other generation, too. But, that may have something to do with the fact that they're young and still good at drinking.

The Wine Market Council report was based mainly on two surveys with 2,936 and 1,200 respondents respectively, and was supplemented with some outside research.

One more interesting point: among older millennials, the amount of male and female "high frequency" wine drinkers is almost even. The breakdown skews female, but comes out to 51% vs. 49%.

All this to say: never underestimate the power of Wine Wednesday.

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Kara King is a News Writer at Thrillist and needs a wine keg right now. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow her at @karatillie.