One of the perils of being voted Young Wine Communicator of the Year - apart from the obvious abuse from my more aged wine writing colleagues is that I am now seen as oracle on all things yoof related.

Time, I think, to set the record straight before I become inundated with requests for what to drink while listening to Scary Spice. This 33-year old doesn't own a mobile phone, would rather read a book than surf the Net, and reckons the definition of a great DJ is Andy Kershaw not Fat Boy Slim. So of you want to know what's the most popular wine among students or an estimate on the number of cases of wine consumed at Glastonbury, you'd be better off writing to the Adam and Joe Show than asking me.

Having said all that, there is one thing I can tell you as I drift into the middle-aged communicator category: the wine business is making virtually no attempt to attract new young wine drinkers. Despite all the developments in taking the elitism out of wine, retailers, wineries, writers and restaurateurs continue to ignore the younger generation of potential drinkers. At a time when global wine consumption is shrinking, and the average age of cellar owners is going up, this strikes me as commercial suicide.

Not wishing to lose my column over this issue, I nonetheless have to kick off this debate by pointing the finger at this very magazine. Just flick through the pages and show me one feature, one advertisement, or one news item that is aimed at (or bears any relevance to) the 18-25 age bracket. My editor will, of course, point out that Decanter knows its market and is hitting that target, but (unless age-reversing pills arrive soon) that market won't be around forever. Wine publishers cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the future.

One of the few publications that does aim at a younger audience, is the California-based magazine, Wine X. Darryl Roberts' gloriously off-the-wall Gen-X mag is a blast of irreverent air in an otherwise ageist arena. One of my favourite Wine X features was a spoof of the pretensions of wine tasting using toothpaste instead of wine, and the best tasting note was 'a Chippendales dancer in leather chaps - tight, full-bodied and ready for action'. (A Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet, by the way.)

The same criticisms aimed at the media also need to be dished out to wine shops. At a time when book shops now have cafes and clothes shops have DJs, the average wine shop looks about as out of touch with the 21st century as the Queen's Christmas speech. Even Oddbins - supposedly on the funkier side - seems a rather tired format, as long as the wine trade continues to ignore the radical changes in retailing, the picture for the high street wine store will remain gloomy. The announcement that Virgin is about to enter the wine online game is the best news I've heard in a long time. Maybe, at last, the twenty-something direct banking, text-message sending wine buyer might find a retailer that speaks to them in their own language.

Wine fairs are also guilty of stale formats aimed at the middle-aged middle market. A recent survey of wine marketing students in Australia showed that most of them found Wine Australia in Melbourne to be elitist and closed-shop. If this is what students think of one of the more snob-free shows, I dread to think what a similar group would make of the average London or New York event.

So how can wine make itself appealing to the 18-25 group without resorting to selling Chardonnay in lager bottles or inventing a Shiraz-and-Red Bull mixer?

The first step is to understand how the average twenty-something thinks and attempt to connect without just resorting to the condescending approach of gimmicky labels and packaging. Dumbing down is not the answer. Humour, jargon-free language and product positioning are.

The latter is particularly crucial. If there are three things that most young consumers consider when buying drinks it is 'does it look good?', 'does it taste good?', and 'who else have I seen drinking it?'. Young drinkers will not be seen dead holding a wine glass in a bar (it is almost as naff and out of fashion as holding a pint of ale) and until they see some of their icons doing it, that isn't going to change.

Wine has got to start attaching itself to musicians, designers, and sportsmen, if it's going to get away from the stereotypical images. Younger generation winemakers have got to be pushed forward and profiled by magazines rather than the suit-and-tie brigade and - providing licensing laws become more flexible - retailers have got to wake up to new opportunities. A bottle shop in Niketown? It might not be such a pipe dream, or indeed such a bad idea.