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"Why Americans don't drink more wine?"

Cleopatra

Philosopher
C
Joined
Mar 15, 2003
Messages
9,079
Excellent article from NapaNews.com

How the change of climate affected the drinking habits. :)

Why America is a land of beer and booze

He started by explaining why America isn't a wine-drinking country. In short, it's because the Little Ice Age of 1450 to 1850 turned our mostly Northeastern forebears from wine into beer and booze drinkers.

About 600 years ago, the climate in the Northern Hemisphere plummeted for 50 years, and Northern Europe stayed uncharacteristically cold until the middle of the 19th century.

This Little Ice Age replaced the Medieval Warming that preceded it, a time when vineyards grew across northern Europe and even in Iceland and Greenland.

In the 13th Century, French vintners complained that English wine flooded their shores and undercut their prices.

With the cooling climate, however, these vineyards retreated south, and northerners had to satisfy their need for alcohol with grain-based beverages, namely beer.

Of course, with cold temperatures, the wheat crop also failed, so laws were passed prohibiting its use in beer, forcing brewers to use tougher grains such as barley. Germans brewers still cite these old laws in proclaiming the "purity" of their beer made only from barley.

The Czechs learned to add hops to preserve the beer, and the member of the Cannabaceae family added a certain appeal. The public soon developed a taste for this slightly bitter brew.

As technology advanced, scientists learned to boil beer to extract its alcohol, making whisky and other alcoholic beverages possible.

The result: Northern Europeans drank beer and hard liquor, not wine. And since the United States was populated mostly by northeastern Europeans, we became a nation of beer and spirits drinkers, a tradition that still exists. More than 80 percent of the wine consumed in America is drunk by little more than 10 percent of the population.
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Wine is for snobs. Other drinks are for those who enjoy themselves. Perhaps oneday wine can be reclaimed (the southen hemisphere is doing a good job here) but for now there is so much bagage with wine it's best left to those who want to feel supiour.
 
geni said:
Wine is for snobs. Other drinks are for those who enjoy themselves. Perhaps oneday wine can be reclaimed (the southen hemisphere is doing a good job here) but for now there is so much bagage with wine it's best left to those who want to feel supiour.
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I think that this opinion prevails in countries that do not have a long tradition of wine drinking like UK and USA. Especially in UK wine drinking was associated with the Royals, since it was for them that the French wine makers worked.

As I said to Luciana about olive oil, wine belongs to the same category of commodities. Maybe all I have to say to persuade you that wine was a dietary supplement for the poor is the fact that in our days in Monasteries, monks drink a glass of wine with their limited food, especially when they are fasting.

So, I agree with you that this is the image but I think that the image is rather fake and it doesn't correspond to the reality. Many celebrity chefs and people of wine are trying to change this attitude though.

Interestingly, in Greece that we drink wine the snobs are the expensive-Belgian beer drinkers.
 
Cleopatra said:


I think that this opinion prevails in countries that do not have a long tradition of wine drinking like UK and USA. Especially in UK wine drinking was associated with the Royals, since it was for them that the French wine makers worked.

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The real reason that they drank so much wine back in the middle ages was that they had bad water. People drinking the water in England at the time would often come down with something they referred to as "the bloody flux". Hell, King John even died of it! (I guess it was dysentary)

Drinking wine was the safe alternative, if you could afford it. But in the USA we've always had good safe water sources...well at least outside of DC we do...(shrug)
WASA officials have been the target of mounting criticism in recent weeks from elected officials and residents, who say the agency did not do enough to inform them about follow-up tests over the summer that revealed high levels of lead in the city's tap water. Testing initially was done in 2002.
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Oh well....bring on the vino!! :alc:

-z
 
I´d like to add a few things...

First, from what I heard, American wine is reason enough to drink beer instead. :)

Second, although Germany is better known for its beer, we also have very good wines from the wineyards in the Rhine river valley, as well as others.

Third, since I have been to wine tests with my former department twice, I know that wine is also very good for enjoying yourself.
 
In the UK wine drinking has steadily increased over the years at the cost beer as wine lost the baggage a bit. Gluck with his guides to supermarket "plonk" has done a lot as people stopped being fooled into spending a lot for an indifferent Chablis, say, when they could get 2 bottles of a good Oz chardonnay for the same money.
Plus the blasted UK brewers destroyed so many good breweries and pubs that it became a better choice to stay in than to go to the pub. These days I tend to stay out of pubs as the ones near me are too damned smokey.
But tonight we felt like cider so bought one of each kind from a supermarket and using them to wash down some lamb chops while listening to my 2 new CDs by the Black Eyed Peas and Norah Jones.
 
rikzilla said:
The real reason that they drank so much wine back in the middle ages was that they had bad water. People drinking the water in England at the time would often come down with something they referred to as "the bloody flux". Hell, King John even died of it! (I guess it was dysentary)

Drinking wine was the safe alternative, if you could afford it. But in the USA we've always had good safe water sources...well at least outside of DC we do...(shrug)
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This is true since the Homeric times, Greeks didn't drink wine=krasi but oino. Oinos was a thick liquid that HAD to be dissolved with water before consumption.

For this task, the Greeks had invented special vessels. Kraters in which they mixed Oinos with water. Krater is the vessel, kerranymi the verb that describes the procedure, the outcome was called krasi in Greek.

Now we have reasons to believe that they the did that in order to prevent the population from dysentary.

In England it was a commodity for the rich and soon it became an indication of wealth and social status.


Chaos, we have to admit that when Americans decide to take up something, anything, they touch perfection. They are not afraid of time and money they have to invest in order to make something perfect.

This is the case of wine. Everything serious in the wine business takes place in California right now.

But tonight we felt like cider so bought one of each kind from a supermarket and using them to wash down some lamb chops while listening to my 2 new CDs by the Black Eyed Peas and Norah Jones.
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:)

I don't know where you live but have in mind that Marks and Spencer imports some real gems from Australia in damn good prices.

edited to add an s to Lord Marks' name :p
 
Chaos said:
Second, although Germany is better known for its beer, we also have very good wines from the wineyards in the Rhine river valley, as well as others.
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Which ones you recommend?
 
Chaos said:
I´d like to add a few things...

First, from what I heard, American wine is reason enough to drink beer instead. :)

Second, although Germany is better known for its beer, we also have very good wines from the wineyards in the Rhine river valley, as well as others.
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Excuse me if I disagree. Many Californian wines are really very very good. Specially the Zinfandel (which is only grown there if I'm not mistaken) beats many heavy French wines. From my personal experience, I would say that if you look really carefully you will alwyas find a superior French or Italian white wine for the same money but the Californian wines beat German wines anytime. Not that there aren't some exquisite German whites...

German red wine sucks and I have still to find some greek wine that doesn't give you a headache (awful stuff, sorry Cleopatra).

I will now resume emptying my bottle of "Villa Antironi", which is very well suited for meals like saltimbocca alla romana (that's what I prepared this evening).

Cheers

Zee
 
Originally posted by Rikzilla:
The real reason that they drank so much wine back in the middle ages was that they had bad water. People drinking the water in England at the time would often come down with something they referred to as "the bloody flux". Hell, King John even died of it! (I guess it was dysentary)
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Over the past two weeks work has entailed me spending time at the bar with two transient colleagues, one from Korea and one from Poland. Both were eager to sample Guinness in it's habitat, and in the process it was established that the Irish, Korean and Polish salutation while drinking all mean the same thing, namely "your health". It's probable that this harks back to earlier times, when imbibing was potentially lethal.

IIRC, it was Irish monks that fist developed whiskey distilling.
 
Wine is the stuff of life.
American wines now rival or in many cases are judged superior to Phrench wines with a few grand exceptions. There are great table wines from Australia and Germany. The craft however has excelled in California because of people like Montdavi and Charles Wagner. The regional wines in places like Oregon seem to have promise as well .


I have enjoyed many wines through the years including Grand Dame DOMs and a Château Margaux 1961 @ 800$ US for the bottle at Burns' served by Bern himself in '85 or so (Bern Laxer Tampa FL ) altho mY personal favorite was a '62 Chateauneuf D' Paup , domain Mont Redon ( split )

We should remember though that the grapes grown in those regions of Phrance are from Texas...as the grape vines all died due to phylloxera in the late 1800s. ( had to get that American Jab in )

So as I post this I am toasting Your health with an American Chardonnay ...which just happened to be aged in French oak barrels.
 
The opening post almost sounds like an argument in favor of global warming!

I like both beer and wine. But I mostly save wine for social events.

Cleopatra said:

As I said to Luciana about olive oil, wine belongs to the same category of commodities. Maybe all I have to say to persuade you that wine was a dietary supplement for the poor is the fact that in our days in Monasteries, monks drink a glass of wine with their limited food, especially when they are fasting.
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If I recall from my two years in Germany, some beers were also intended as dietary supplements for fasting monks. Bach Beers fit that category if I remember correctly. The only problem is, I did sample quite a few German beers and I very well may not remember correctly.

Wine is great. But the bottle size and shape makes it a less ideal consumer product. Not quite as portable as a six pack. However, the bottle size does tend to make it a better social device. You have to share it to get the most utility out of the bottle. That is the best reason for drinking wine.
 
Ontario wine is also just beginning to come into its own. And, of course, our ice wine is prize winning (but very expensive!).

My friends and I made our own wine last month ~ a chardonnay and a pinot noir. It'll be ready for drinking in 6 months (but better to wait a year! A year!) I can't wait.

Does any know if Canadians drink more or less wine than Americans?
 
TruthSeeker said:
Ontario wine is also just beginning to come into its own. And, of course, our ice wine is prize winning (but very expensive!).

My friends and I made our own wine last month ~ a chardonnay and a pinot noir. It'll be ready for drinking in 6 months (but better to wait a year! A year!) I can't wait.

Does any know if Canadians drink more or less wine than Americans?
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Truthseeker, try making Beaujolais (also now referred to as bergamais due to some naming legalities) or Chianti for a quicker turnaround. If you want some white for the summer, try making a chablis.

Your Chardonnay shouldn't have to sit for a year, I don't think!

Every fall, I make about 15 gallons of Chokecherry wine, from berries I pick myself. And I'm looking forward to a good Saskatoon berry season, because I want to do a Saskatoon wine too.

Home winemaking...... a chemistry experiment you can drink! I love it.
 
badger,

You are far advanced compared to me. We just bought the juice etc. from a wine making place and put it all together. It was great fun. The juice came from the Iniskillin winery so should be very good.

The owner said we could drink it whenever we want. It will be ready for bottling next week. But best to wait 6 months to a year. I don't know anything more about it.
 
TillEulenspiegel said:
Wine is the stuff of life.
American wines now rival or in many cases are judged superior to Phrench wines with a few grand exceptions.
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There's very little difference any more. American wine is grown with European grapes grafted onto American root stock. So is most European wine; the nematode resistance of American root stock solved problems with some other grape diseases in Europe.

Also, what with microbiology and all, it's a lot easier to make wine that is consistently good, whereas not too long ago it was a shot in the dark. Yes, there will be variations based on the weather year to year, but nowhere near as much as before.

I think wine became associated with snobbery because the quality control was so lousy. One really did have to know a fair amount about wine in order to get something that wasn't just this side of vinegar. Whereas beer and distilled liquors go through one or several stages of cooking that kill undesirable organisms, for wine it's traditionally been a crap shoot.

Seriously. Does one really need to sniff the cork any more? They're all sterilized and sprayed with plastic these days.

One of my clients is really into wine, but I don't seem to be able to get into it. I remember getting into and learning about beer and distilled spirits, but I haven't been able to get into wine. Possibly it's the cost. I can afford to go to a pub and pay $5 to try a new beer or scotch, but I have to pay $20 to $80 to try a new wine, because only crappy wine comes in those little single-serving bottles. Wine tastings are nice, but they're usually held by people who want to sell you their particular crap or what they have overstocked, which is suboptimal.
 
ZeeGerman said:

Many Californian wines are really very very good. Specially the Zinfandel
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Please don't hold up Zinfandel as a good example of USA wine! Its things like this that give our country a bad name.

It's bad enough that everybody else in the world thinks we all only drink Budweiser and swill like that when in fact there is a wider variety of good beer available in the USA (particularly the west coast) then anywhere else on earth.

USA certainly doesn't make the best wine available on the planet but Zinfandel is just for the suburban Applebees crowd.

Share and Enjoy - Aaron
 
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