Winecast 76: Struggle Meals’ Frankie Celenza, young people, and wine

Why young people don’t drink wine, and what can be done about it

The wine business has been running around in a dither trying to figure out how to reach younger consumers, so the Wine Curmudgeon asked one: Frankie Celenza, the 30-something host of Tastemade’s “Struggle Meals” cooking show.

Celenza, who rarely uses wine on his show unless he’s rolling dough with an empty bottle, was frank, funny, and forthright about why his generation doesn’t much care for wine: It’s too complicated, too snooty, too expensive, and its marketing is lousy. And – pay attention to this, wine business – he has only bought a case of a wine once, a $4 Italian red. It’s the only wine, he says, he thought was good and offered enough value to buy 12 bottles at one time.

How screwed up is wine when someone who cooks and eats and loves food says that about wine?

The podcast is about 19 1/2 minutes long and takes up 14 megabytes. Listen or download here. We had a tremendous time, and Celenza – despite claiming he didn’t know much about wine – knew a lot. We talked about pairing wine with various picnic sandwiches; his love of Lambrusco and where it fits into all of that; rose, of course; making chicken “bacon” out of chicken skin; and the difficulties of buying quality fish at the supermarket.

And, beware, craft beer: Celenza says it’s making the same mistakes as wine – becoming too complicated and too expensive. Which, if anyone has looked at craft beer’s sales figures, explains a lot.