10 Bottles a Month, That’s All We Ask

Premium wines are becoming more popular, and Americans drank more wine last year than in any other year since 1986. Nevertheless, just about all wineries in the United States believe that their industry is in trouble.

After all, Americans still average no more than one bottle of wine per month, while most western Europeans drink 10 times as much. And winery owners are keenly aware of a growing wave of anti-alcohol sentiment.

To begin with, governmental agencies talk about higher and higher “sin” taxes, some of which would include wine. Moreover, additional warning labels are being proposed, and those who target high fat in foods are also targeting anything with alcohol in it as a dangerous drug.

So fearful is the wine industry over attacks on its livelihood that a dozen of the largest U.S. wine companies have gotten behind an effort by the fledgling Wine Market Council to mount a campaign bringing the message of wine’s joys to the public.

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But before such a crusade could begin, the wineries said they needed to know why Americans were not drinking more wine, especially since it is so popular with Europeans and since most Americans are of European origin. So they commissioned studies to find out who’s drinking wine, and under what circumstances.

John Gillespie, executive director of the council, just completed the second of two major surveys of alcoholic beverage consumption, and though most findings are yet to be tabulated, he points to some interesting early findings.

He said many people have an “ivory tower image” of wine. Some fear they will pronounce wine names incorrectly; others perceive wine as appropriate only for special occasions. They view beer as the drink for more casual moments.

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Meanwhile, Clos du Val’s Bernard Portet has another reason why Americans don’t drink more wine: lifestyle and TV.

Portet, winemaker for his Napa Valley winery, was born in France and reared at Chateau Lafite-Rothschild, where his father was manager. When Bernard moved to California 25 years ago to open a winery, he was surprised by the fast lifestyle we tend to lead.

“The dinner hour here is so short, and people want to turn on the TV, so they don’t take the time at dinner that we do in France,” said Portet.

In France, he said, tradition calls for a lunchtime of two hours. Shops close between noon and 2 p.m.; some reopen even later. And they stay open until 6 or 7 p.m. In most homes dinner doesn’t begin until at least 8. “And just try to get seated in a restaurant at 8 p.m.,” he said. “They look at you like you’re crazy.” Dinner then lasts until 10 p.m., adequate time to enjoy a leisurely glass or two of wine.

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Here, he said, “you get out of work at 5:30 and you rush to the market, and then you rush home, and you rush to get dinner on the table because you don’t want to miss TV. There’s no time for wine.”

The Wine Market Council’s Gillespie agreed with that scenario and said he found supporting evidence in his surveys.

“First of all,” said Gillespie, “Americans’ use of wine has nothing to do with ingrained socio-cultural patterns, the way it is in Europe. Wine has been a part of European cultures for at least 2,000 years, but not here.”

He said that even though many Americans have European roots, the lack of local wine on much of the East Coast and in the Midwest combined with the anti-alcohol sentiments that led to Prohibition to break the tradition we might have had.

He said some cultures (such as those from Mediterranean countries) maintained their love of wine, but as immigrants Americanized over generations, they grew away from wine as a part of daily life.

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Gillespie said one fascinating result of focus-group research in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York with people who already consumed some alcoholic beverages was that half of the regular wine drinkers and 61% of casual consumers thought that “serving wine makes the occasion seem formal.”

“They view wine as a beverage to impress people, of maturity and sophistication,” he said. “The 20-something people have this down pat. To them, this is what wine is all about. You will be viewed as more sophisticated, a little more formal, if you have wine. They assign character to the beverage.”

Gillespie views this thinking as reducing wine to a status symbol. “For many people, wine is, by and large, not spontaneous. What we’re seeing is that wine is not a primary part of the daily routine.

The good news for winemakers is that Jobson Beverage Group, a New York-based beverage-alcohol statistical service, just published the 1994 per-capita wine consumption figure. At 2.51 gallons per adult, we now consume more wine than in any year since 1986, when the figure was 3.58.

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Wine of the Week

1993 Hogue Cellars Semillon ($7.50) --Those who score wines numerically are usually precise when it comes to Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Such scoring systems disintegrate, however, when it comes to grape varieties like Semillon. The highest score a Semillon can ever get from any of these reviewers is perhaps 90 out of 100. The reviewers defend themselves with comments like, “Well, it’s only Semillon,” as if the heritage of the grape makes it somehow inferior.

In a blind tasting I staged recently of similar wines, this wine got a perfect score. Should it score 100 on someone’s chart? Why not? It has a perfect aroma of racy anise and pear fruit with a trace of melons, a faint peppery quality, and a glorious amount of fruit in the mouth. A purist might wonder if the wine will age. I argue that that question is pure balderdash. This wine has such amazing freshness and vitality right now that it should be consumed right now for its sheer sensual delight. I have some older Hogue Semillons and they are better for the age, but they are different. Is this a perfect wine? Served with grilled sea bass, I can’t imagine a better one. And it’s occasionally discounted to $6 or so. The number people be damned. Try this wine.