Drinking Alone (and its Discontents)

Robert Putnam’s 2000 best-selling book Bowling Alone painted a dark picture of modern society. Putnam saw Americans as less and less connected to social institutions and to each other. The stark image of the lone bowler is difficult to forget.

A quarter century later, the image still seems relevant, especially since the world has been filled with smartphones and their addictive apps in the interval. Now that bowler is probably standing alone in a crowd, head down, shoulders hunched in today’s ubiquitous posture, doom-scrolling to oblivion.

From Bowling Balls to Pizza Pies

A powerful social trend like this will affect all manner of things, but I have only recently begun to really appreciate how it is impacting wine (and how some wine businesses are reacting).

It started with a supermarket ad. One of our local stores advertises “$5 Friday” specials each week and a couple of recent offers involved wine. Five dollar wine? Yes, I have seen that before. But the deal was five 200ml mini-cartons of Barefoot wine for five dollars. Five for five. It’s a good deal, but why the small packages?

The answer came in a recent Wall Street Journal article about pizza. The pizza business has been suffering recently and not because pizza is too expensive (although some of it is not cheap). Think about how many servings are in one of those big ten buck Costco deli pizzas.

No, the problem is that a pizza almost demands to be shared and sharing means getting together, agreeing or compromising about the type of pizza, and maybe not getting exactly what you want. Sharing is great if you value the social aspect of pizza, but it is a pain if you want what you want when you want it and don’t want to compromise.

Domino’s Domino

Is this a big pizza problem? Well, it is problem enough, according to the Wall Street Journal, for market leader Domino’s to release a “bowling alone” version of pizza they call the Domino. It’s a rectangular-shaped single serving packaged in a box shaped like the company’s playful logo. Pizza just for you. You don’t have to share. Everyone gets what they want.

“The percentage of consumers eating alone has been steadily growing in the U.S., with 43% of food-service meals eaten solo in the 12 months ended in June, according to market-research firm Circana, according to the WSJ report.

Single Sips and Slices

The Domino pizza is portable, too, which is another market desire, although the producer doesn’t recommend eating while driving.

Which brings me back to those 200ml Barefoot packages, which were featured on the cover of  Wine Business Monthly back in June 2026. Like the Domino, they provide a generous single serving if you are drinking alone. And everyone can choose the wine (or not wine) that they like if you are in a group. Sharing? Compromises? Not a problem. And great portability although, like the Domino, not recommended for the driver.

The Wine Business Monthly report suggests that Barefoot is far from alone in recognizing that changing consumer behavior has altered the wine landscape, opening new wine occasions even as some traditional wine opportunities fade a bit. The 200ml tetra package, like the Domino box, seems ideal for this moment. There is nothing new in small wine bottles and Domino’s already makes a small-size pizza. But they both decided to innovate size and package to send a message to a particular consumer segment.

Is drinking alone a good thing? No more than eating alone is a good thing. But it is here and we all see it around us. So it makes sense to adapt to the reality even if we simultaneously resist the bowling alone trend and try to foster community and conviviality.