Comments on: Wine Rocks (Is Wine Appreciation Becoming Cool?)

By: 150 Years of Louis Jadot (Burgundy Rocks Out in Toronto) | 1 Wine Dude

150 Years of Louis Jadot (Burgundy Rocks Out in Toronto) | 1 Wine Dude — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:00:07 +0000

[...] Back in March, I pondered if wine appreciation was becoming cool, drawing a parallel between wine’s place in the cultural lexicon of recreation beverages and the newfound popularity of the long-running Canadian power rock trio Rush – or as I like to refer to them, The Greatest Band in the History of All Mankind. The comparison seemed apt to me, as Rush’s front man Geddy Lee is a huge wine geek (and I’m a big Rush geek). [...]

By: 1WineDude

1WineDude — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:10:41 +0000

I think you're right – those youngsters don't have the baggage associated with wine appreciation (the baggage that says that it's "hard" and needs "rules" and makes the Wine Spectator folks money… ;-).

By: MasterGrape

MasterGrape — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:15:31 +0000

I'll check out the studies linked in that post. They look neat although a tad US-centric. I would also add some anecdotal evidence (no matter how unreliable). The vast majority of people I see checking out of grocery and liquor stores with carlo rossi and big jugs of baaad wine are not my age.

If you're holding a wine tasting and you ask somebody with Lindeman's or whatnot in their cart to taste they will obstinately refuse 90% of the time. If a kid is buying a box of franzia, they will still very often be willing to taste a new product in the hopes that they will be able to buy it later. Much more curiosity in the youngsters.

By: 1WineDude

1WineDude — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:13:22 +0000

Hey Master Grape & MyDailyWine,

I've had readers comment (correctly, I think) that Boomers will continue to drive the core wine market for years to come. However, you don't need to look far to see where *new* growth in wine sales are coming from, and that's definitely NOT Boomers.

There was an interesting post over at the Open Wine Consortium (see http://www.openwineconsortium.org/profiles/blogs/… ) that cites a few sources on the topic of the growing importance of a new generation of wine drinkers:

"In 2008, nearly half of the millennial segment reported a net 23 percent increase in wine consumption–double that of generation-Xers against minimal or declining figures for the aging baby boomers. Gillespie described this trend as a "trade-off" phenomenon, where better than 10 percent of wine drinkers, primarily generation-Xers, are increasing total wine consumption at the expense of beer and spirits."

Those studies make no mention of the current coolness of Rush, I'm afraid, but I'll still be loving them long after it's cool to do so. ;-)

By: 1WineDude

1WineDude — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:06:46 +0000

I've seen them perform 2112 in its entirety twice, several years ago. Stellar stuff!