The first time Tyler Huckabee tasted wine, he didn't like it.

"I remember early on tasting wine and thinking of it as glorified grape juice," he recalled. "It was like, ‘Oh I get it, it's like Kool-Aid.'"

The 24-year-old server at Bread & Cup has since changed his mind and now drinks at least four glasses of the juice a week.

Huckabee is part of a growing trend. According to the Wine Market Council, people ages 21 to 29 are the fastest-growing segment of the wine market, with 47 percent reporting in 2008 that they drank more wine that year than in the previous year.

This isn't breaking news. Wine makers have noticed an increase in U.S. wine consumption for years, especially in the younger set. But the casual way the millennial generation approaches the once-stuffy drink has wine connoisseurs and casual drinkers alike wondering where the wine trend will lead.

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The reasons behind the young-wine-drinkers phenomenon aren't scientific, but local wine slinger Ken Meier has an idea.

"This generation's parents learned about wine by drinking Mogen David at Thanksgiving, and that was the only wine experience that they had," said the co-owner of Meier's Cork 'N' Bottle. "But that generation persevered and became the start of the wine boom in the U.S. in the late 1970s."

Baby boomers then passed the torch to their children by studying wine, talking about it and serving it at meals.

"Now as the next generation gets to be 21, they've already had that foundation," he continued, "so it makes it easy for them to jump into wine consumption."

And jumped into it they have, making a big, messy splash along the way. Young wine consumers are redefining the wine culture with their unfussy approach to the drink. They've taken what was once considered a hoity-toity social rite and turned it into a pretension-less drinking habit.

"Just the other night me and a friend had a bottle of wine, and we just killed it out of the bottle. So you can do that, and it's fine," Huckabee said. "But there would be plenty of people who would look at that and be like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe they're not pouring it into a proper glass.'"

The go-to drink is no longer a sixer of Old Milwaukee, though that trend will never fade. Increasingly, you can go to a party and find young 20-somethings gripping a bottle of wine by its neck and taking pulls straight from it.

"I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing drinking it out of the bottle," says Evan Hill, a 21-year-old who considers himself a casual wine drinker. "It's like, you can listen to music on vinyl and you hear it so much better than you would, say, on a cassette tape player that has a little speaker. But, you know, they're both worthwhile. You're going to get effect out of both."

With the comparison of "critter" wines to cassettes and a hearty cab to vinyl, it's clear that the mystique and snobbishness that wine has traditionally maintained has faded. Today, it's common for younger drinkers to grab a bottle of wine and share it with a friend over a movie. They host wine and cheese parties, attend flight nights and check out tastings at local wineries and spirits stores, too. Young people aren't intimidated by wine; they're fascinated by it.

"It's a craft," says 28-year old Charlie Ludwig, head server at Blue Orchid. "And it's never the same. ... There are always new things popping up and new ideas."

His current fling is with merlots and cabs, though it was Rhone wines before that and pinots that started everything.

Because of his job, Ludwig tries more wines per week than most people do in a month. He credits serving at a wine-centric restaurant as the main catalyst for his immersion in its culture and knowledge.

"Working here has broadened my knowledge and perspective a lot," he said. "Being in the company of people who have extensive knowledge and passion for it really fostered it."

Though Ludwig, Huckabee and their counterparts in the food and wine business actively learn about the technicalities of wine, they say a deep knowledge of the drink isn't necessary to enjoy it.

"It's adaptable. You don't have to be well-read in the whole culture of wine to get into wine," Huckabee said. "There doesn't need to be an intimidation. I think a lot of people understand that now. There's this idea like, ‘OK, I don't know what mouthfeel means, and I can't even spell bouquet, but I know I like this.'"

Reach Liz Stinson at features@journalstar.com.