Beer Goes Flat as Canadians Turn to Red Wine

The latest national figures suggest Canadian palates are becoming somewhat more cosmopolitan when it comes to alcohol. Numbers released by StatsCan show that imported beer has more than doubled its market share in the last decade, while the amount of wine consumed continues to grow.

Canadians’ growing taste for red wine is cutting into beer’s traditional market dominance across the country, Statistics Canada has just reported. Beer clung to its lead as the most popular alcoholic drink in Canada, but its market share has fizzled, from 53 per cent in 1993 to 46 per cent by 2009, the new numbers showed.

Meanwhile, Canadians bought 441.4 million litres of wine, 64 per cent of that red and rosé. Dollar sales of red and rosé have more than doubled between 2000 and 2009, while white wine sales have climbed by 50 per cent.

Domestic wines grabbed more market share of that increase than imported, StatsCan said. Just over 24 per cent of all reds and rosés sold in Canada were domestic, compared with almost 39 per cent of whites.

Between 2008 and 2009, beer sales flatlined in Ontario, but wine sales increased 3.7 per cent. Elsewhere in the country, wine sales climbed sharply compared to beer, except for Saskatchewan and Alberta. Quebecers spent the least per capita on hard liquor in the country and Saskatchewan spent the least on wine. Manitobans’ beer bill per person was the smallest in the country.