What Do You Drink?

I know you’ve been waiting for it. Clamoring for it actually.

But the new Harris poll is now in and it takes a snapshot of what we are drinking, how much we are buying how much we are paying for our wines.

To begin with 58% of the respondents in the pollof 1,475 Americans  identified themselves as “wine buyers”. That’s six out of every 10. A pretty high number, but I must note here that this means that four out of every 10 wine drinkers must be drinking wine bought by the other six of us. They say there is no free lunch but, based on this poll, 40% of Americans wine drinkers get free wine.

The good news is that 8%, a little less than one in ten drinkers reported that they are buying a bottle of wine at least twice a week. Now that’s more like it. This figure is up from five years ago when just 3% of wine consumers said they bought that much juice. Clearly those who like wine are liking more of it as time marches on.

The other good news is that American wine drinkers/buyers seem to be a fairly adventurous lot. Nine out ten respondents, as would be expected, said that they drink American wines. But 37% said they drink or buy Australian wines. 22% drink wines from Germany, the same percentage that said they buy the wines of Spain, and Chilean wines checked in at 20%.

Beyond that respondents said that they would consider buying wines from a number of countries that are not currently on most drinkers wine maps. While 1% reported that they are currently drinking wines from Turkey and Poland (huh?) nearly 2 of every ten surveyed said they would consider the possibility of drinking or buying from those countries. Oddly, just 1% of those who answered, by my calculations, about 14 folks, said that they would consider buying wines from Canada. What’s up with that, eh?

As for Italy and France, those two great nations of Europe were second and fourth respectively amongst the Harris poll participants when they were asked which countries that they bought or consumed wine from. Both had fallen in percentage terms from the 2004 poll which is an indication of the growing global competition for the wine buyers dollar. Australia, by the way, tied with Italy for the #2 spot in the hearts and wallets of wine drinkers.

Speaking of wallets, the poll also asked folks how much they spend on their wines. Surprisingly, at least to me, only 37% said they have ever bought a bottle of wine that cost $30 or more. When asked how much the last bottle of wine they purchased cost, just 9% responded $30 plus.

The majority 57% said their last bottle purchased set them back less than $15 while 27% had bought a wine that cost less than $10, a testament to the values that exist in the world of wine these days.

So the question is “What are you drinking? What countries would you like try wine from and how much do you spend for your wines?” Let’s talk about lies, damn lies and statistics.

Tags: Australia, Canada, Europe, France, Germany, Harris, Italy, Poland, Spain, Turkey, USD

Category: Food & Wine, Lifestyle