Winebits 797: Wine delivery, wine competitions, wine demographics

This week’s wine news: Wine delivery and alcoholism, plus analyzing wine competitions and a few thoughts about the wine demographic and the theater

• Not all drunk? A common refrain during the pandemic – though not from statisticians – is that we were passed out every night. One of the reasons given is that alcohol delivery, which was previously not all that legal, made getting drunk that much easier. Now, writes C. Jarrett Dieterle in “Reason,” “there is no demonstrable link between alcohol delivery laws and our heightened pandemic drinking.” Further, he writes, “claims about alcohol delivery and increased overall drinking have been largely conjured out of thin air.” The piece, which analyzes government data, makes several telling points: Media scare headlines based on little actual data and serious flaws in the drinking research. As Dieterle notes, one of the most important studies didn’t “clarify whether the respondents who had alcohol delivered during the pandemic also drank more pre-pandemic than the non-delivery crowd. In other words, these respondents might have merely shifted their drinking from the corner bar to their home, rather than increasing their drinking.” Again, alcoholism is a serious problem, and it deserves serious research – not fear mongering.

• Whither wine competitions: The wine business has been wringing its hands for years about the efficacy of wine competitions, and now there is one more wondering voice. Writes Sean R. Sullivan: “Wine competitions have long been a dubious side of the industry. … The situation, however, has gotten considerably worse. Many competitions have started converting the medals they have traditionally given into scores on the 100-point scale. The results would be comical if they weren’t so harmful.” The post discusses score inflation, the dubious use of scores to give medals, and how the results seem less than legitimate. It’s well worth reading given Sullivan’s stature among the Winestream Media.

• Oh those, demographics: The Wine Curmudgeon loves the theater; seeing a play is one of the great joys of life (musicals, even). So I read with with interest Andrew Lloyd Webber’s take on his “Phantom of the Opera” closing on Broadway after 35 years. That’s because he wonders about the future of the theater for reasons all too familiar to wine drinkers. Ticket costs, for one, averaging $130 and “unaffordable for too many people.” And, he adds, it’s not surprising that young creators – the next Lloyd Webbers — go “anywhere other than Broadway to make a living.” Imagine that: live theater becoming as irrelevant as wine, both as loss leaders so huge multi-nationals can sell other products.