Tag Archives: wine consumption

Winebits 307: Wine cities, Wine Spectator, wine revolution

? More wine in Dallas, please: The Wine Curmudgeon has noted many times that Dallas residents treat wine as if they were afraid of it, and now we have statistical evidence to support my observation. A Harris Poll found that Dallas residents are the least likely of anyone in the country’s 10 biggest metro areas to drink wine, and that we lead the country in not drinking any alcohol at all. No wonder we spend way too much time obsessing over the Cowboys. Obviously, I have my work cut out for me, and will continue to urge responsible cheap wine drinking on the masses. It’s the least I can do.

? Some wines are more equal than others: Kyle Schlachter at Colorado Wine Press, who has much more patience with the Winestream Media than I have, reports on what appears to be the Wine Spectator’s double standard for choosing wines to review. The magazine has said it won’t review some wines (in this case, from Colorado) if they they aren’t widely available. On the other hand, it recently reviewed several wines from France that weren’t widely available (10 cases or less in the U.S.). Schlachter seemed surprised by this contradiction, but that’s only because he hasn’t been dealing with this kind of hypocrisy for as long as I have. The Spectator does what the Spectator does; that’s why it is the Spectator. And why it has a Curmudgie named after it.

? Democratizing wine: David White of the Terroirist has a fine take on the changes in the wine business, led by consumers who make up their own minds about what they want to drink. He quotes Jancis Robinson, the preeminent European critic: ” ?No longer are wine critics and reasonably well-known wine writers like me sitting on a pedestal, haughtily handing down our judgments. Nowadays ? [consumers] can make up their own minds. That ?s altogether a lot healthier. ? It’s also intriguing, from my perspective, that some of the best and most well-known critics in the world see this change and approve of it. That means they have the well being of wine and wine drinkers at heart, and not whether they continue to be important and famous.

Winebits 306: Grape shortage, Bogle, wine labels

? So much for the experts: Last week’s report that the world was facing an imminent grape shortage and a corresponding leap in prices sent the wine world into a minor fluff. Eventually, common sense prevailed and the news was discounted for what it was — at the very least odd and at the very most suspicious. There is no grape shortage, and the best reporting on the subject was done, as usual, by Lew Perdue at Wine Industry Insight. Stacy Finz at the Chronicle in San Francisco contributed a very sensible piece as well. Most telling was this bit in Finz’s article: “The report’s authors, Tom Kierath and Crystal Wang of Morgan Stanley’s Australian consumer and beverage branch, declined to be interviewed.” My experience, after some 30 years as a reporter, is that when someone doesn’t want to defend what they wrote or said, then there isn’t much reason to pay attention to it.

? Wine drinkers know a good thing: Bogle, the $10 wine that has been in the cheap wine Hall of Fame as long as there has been a Hall of Fame, continues to sell lots and lots and lots of wine. Shanken News Daily, the web news service (and part of the Wine Specator empire — oh delicious irony), reports that the company’s sales rose nearly 16 percent in 2012 to 1.75 million cases. That makes Bogle one of the biggest dozen or so producers in the country, and it has almost doubled its sales in the past 18 months since I interviewed Ryan Bogle. The Shanken article credits the quality of the Bogle wines for the label’s success, though in a very Winestream Media way, citing points — “more than 30 scores of 87 points or higher from Wine Spectator” — as proof of quality. Though, to be honest, as annoying as that is, I don’t know why I would expect anything different.

? An easier to read wine label, please: Lou Marmon, one of the best wine writers that not enough people know about, has a fine take on the foolishness that passes for wine labels these days. “Clearly front labels are critical to wine marketing,” he writes, “but is there any reason why they cannot be more accurate and informative?” Marmon details all the agonies involved in reading a wine label, whether misleading terms like “old vines,” cute labels, and variation in alcohol content. And, he points out, that doesn’t include the difference between European and U.S. labels, which take the subject in another, albeit equally confusing, direction.

The 2012 Wine Market Council report: More of us are drinking cheap wine more often

Are more of us drinking wine more often? That ?s one of the conclusions from the Wine Market Council ?s annual report, which tracks U.S. wine consumption habits and trends.

The report, which has been published since 1994, says that core wine drinkers ? those of us who drink wine at least once a week ? make up 25 percent of the U.S. adult population and drink 93 percent of the wine. The good news? That the number of core wine drinkers has increased by two-thirds since the first study.

“Wine drinkers are gravitating towards higher consumption,” says John Gillespie, the president of the market council. “And the driver seems to be they see more occasions as wine drinking occasions.”

But, even then, we’re watching prices. More than 9 of 10 core wine drinkers said it’s possible to buy wine without spending a lot of money. (Insert plug for The Cheap Wine Book here). Says the report: “The most desirable characteristics in a wine bought at retail are value, high quality, previous trial, and a high level of comfort when serving it to friends.” Note that this does not say anything about scores, reviews, or any of the things that drive the traditional wine business.

This fact, tempered with the demographic information that showed that Millennials (consumers ages 21-36) drink more wine than the Baby Boomers, should make everyone in the wine business break out in a cold sweat. Because, though Boomers make up 38 percent of wine drinkers, they consume only 32 percent of the wine. The numbers for Millennials are 29 and 38 — and that doesn’t include the 8 million of them who aren’t old enough to drink yet.

There are still some numbers in the report that bother me, not the least of which is that per capita wine consumption in the U.S. has remained more or less the same for 40 years. But, says Gillespie, that’s probably not as big a problem as I think it is. His focus is on the core numbers, which shows that Americans are taking wine more seriously than ever before. I’ll settle for that.

Winebits 259: Wine consumption edition

? French wine consumption declines again: But they still drink more than the rest of us, something that tends not to show up in these stories. A five-year study by a French agriculture ministry agency found that French adults drink more than six bottles of wine a month, down from about 18 in 1965. By comparison, the average American drinks about one bottle a month. Why have the French cut down? They ?re ?increasingly cautious about products that are dangerous in excessive quantities, ? said a ministry spokeswoman.

? English buying less wine: By two percent over a year ago, according to figures from a British trade group. This is an amazing statistic, given Britain ?s long history as a wine drinking nation, and it shows just how deep and difficult the recession has been there. A report spokesman did not hedge his comments: ?Overall, the latest market report shows that consumers are continuing to tighten their belts and shop around for the best value in these tough economic times. ?

? Wine.com customers love their Cristalino: It was second most ordered wine from the Internet retailer in 2012, and this was the sixth consecutive time it made Wine.com ?s top 100 sales list. This does not surprise the Wine Curmudgeon, long a Cristalino fan, though it may surprise many in the business who keep waiting for wine prices to increase. In fact, the top 10 list was headed by an $8 Columbia Crest wine, and two or three wines on the list were really expensive.

Winebits 247: Alcohol consumption edition

This week, a roundup of why we ?re drinking what we ?re drinking:

? The Economist, my favorite snooty English magazine, looks at the resurgence in craft beer and spirits in the U.S. This matters to wine drinkers because those two businesses have been able to do something that wine still struggles with: Providing a quality product at a fair price that ?s not necessarily made by a multi-national. Besides, how often do you get to see U.S. liquor laws described as ?irksome

? Why are Australians drinking less? This is apparently a matter of some debate Down Under, given how much Aussies like to drink. They always appear on lists detailing the world's top boozers, but something has happened over the past several years, with consumption down 2.6 percent in the past year. One expert says his countrymen are cutting back because they drink too much, and less is healthier. The general consensus, though, blames the recession and the strong Australian dollar, and as soon as the economy improves, they ?ll be tippling as usual.

? Are we drinking more beer again? A Gallup poll says so, noting that wine is no longer the most popular alcoholic beverage in the U.S. This was a big deal a year or so ago, and I got about a trillion badly-written news releases about this; don ?t they teach statistics and polling anymore? More interesting is the the gender gap among wine drinkers: Women outnumber men more than two to one, and if the poll is to be believed, only one-fifth of American men drink wine.

Follow-up: What do Americans want? Cheap wine, of course

Carl Kolchak, The Wine Stalker

But Tony, I'm tellin' ya: These people really do want to drink cheap wine.

Coincidence? Or more evidence that the Wine Curmudgeon is, like Carl Kolchak in ?The Night Stalker, ? one of the few people who can see the  reality that so many ignore?

Consider these three things, which happened more or less at the same time that I wrote the Sept. 13 post about cheap wine:

? The Dallas Morning News, which usually doesn ?t do things like this, ran a story about $4 wine, using consumers instead of experts for a tasting panel. (An original idea, no?) The piece got 16,000 hits in one day, which is more than many wine blogs get in a year. It was also the most highly visited post on the newspaper ?s website that day, which speaks to how much trouble the newspaper business is in. And a tip o ? the Curmudgeon ?s fedora to the Italian Wine Guy, who sent this my way.

? Trader Joe ?s, which pretty much invented the ultra-cheap wine category with Two-buck Chuck, said it would not sell wine at its new Boulder, Colo., store. The reaction was not surprising. One resident said that when she lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., she would to go Trader Joe's about once every two weeks — often to buy wine. "A lot of the reason people went there is the inexpensive, good quality wines," she said. Another, so distraught, used the word bummer.

? My local Whole Foods has the Rene Barbier rose ($5, purchased), which we don ?t often see in Dallas and which always delivers more than $5 worth of rose ? not quite ripe strawberry fruit, no flaws, and dry as can be. I bought two bottles, and was quite surprised when the 20-something man at the checkout counter asked me if it was any good. Yes, I said, as are the Rene Barbier red and white. That ?s super cool, he said, adding that he wanted to try something other than the Whole Foods private label cheap wine; he said he was getting tired of it. I don ?t need any fingers or toes to count how many times that has happened to me when older people check me out. Or how rarely anyone my age talks to me about the wine I ?m buying.

What do Americans want? Cheap wine, of course

The blog always enjoys an uptick in visitors in September, and the final four months of the year are always the most read. But a funny thing happened on the way to the usual increase in visitors: It has been a surprisingly large increase, some 5 percent over the last four weeks, and was generated by would-be wine drinkers looking for cheap wine.

How do I know this? Because I can track the search terms people use to get here, and there is no mistaking what they were looking for — and looking for in numbers they haven ?t in years past:

? Top cheap wines 2012

? Best cheap wines 2012

? Best cheap red wine and best cheap white wine

Notice the trend? More, after the jump:

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