Baby boomers pick wine over beer

Australia has more wine drinkers than any other Anglo nation, but it's the baby boomers, not young consumers who are driving the market, an industry researcher says.

Lulie Halstead, chief executive of market research group Wine Intelligence, said older drinkers were shifting from beer and spirits to wine.

"There's a misnomer within the wine industry that it's younger consumers that are driving all of market growth," she told AAP ahead of speaking at a wine industry conference.

Ms Halstead said 66 per cent of Australian adults now consumed wine at least once a month, compared with 59 per cent in the UK and 33 per cent in the US.

The average age of Australia's 10.8 million wine drinkers was 48 or 49.

The shift from beer and spirits to wine in the baby boomer generation had been driven by health and alcohol awareness campaigns such as those associated with drink driving, Ms Halstead said.

"Wine is seen as the more acceptable face of alcohol," she said.

The Wine Intelligence research has also unearthed a growth in wine consumption in Asian countries, particularly in mainland China.

Ms Halstead said an increasing number of Chinese women were turning to wine as a part of their health and beauty regime.

"Red wine is seen as enhancing skin tone, digestion... a small glass of wine on the night stand before bed will aid the beauty regime," she said.

It was also seen as increasingly important in China for men to be able to choose a wine for their partner or girlfriend.

Ms Halstead said the trends meant opportunities existed for Australia's wine industry to export more into Asia, but she warned they needed to understand the influences driving the market.

"If you don't listen and understand the motivation of your consumer let that be at your peril," she said.

"If you don't understand what's driving that (the market), it doesn't matter what we do in the wineries and the vineyards, we're not going to connect with those consumers."