Wine Trends: Part 1 The Overview

This is a trendy business. After thirty years of selling this stuff, I can most definitely say, "This is a trendy business.".

For most of the past fifty years white wines predominated in sales in America by as much as three to one over reds. Prior to my entry into this game roses had their heyday in the sixties and early seventies along with everyday German and Italian cocktail fare and a whole lot of generic California jugs. Then came the "Judgment at Paris" wine tasting in 1976 popularized in the 2008 film, "Bottle Shock", and suddenly California varietals were on the map. It was California Chardonnay that then proceded to rule over all whites for about thirty years until Pinot Grigio, always a distant second to Chardonnay, passed Chardonnay in sales in this store two years ago.

Red wine was strictly for connosieurs until the eighties when California Cabernet and particularly Merlot grabbed a hold of the market while California Zinfandel became the cult wine of the time largely through industry promotion. Also at that time a rennaissance in the european wine industries began with Italy first, followed by Spain (June 29th blog and preceding), and France in the nineties. That pouring of both private and public money into european wine production was actually a culmination of a steady trend to restore what had been shattered by World War II.

The "French Paradox", an episode of ABC's 60 Minutes in 1991, introduced to the American public the apparent truth that moderate red wine intake can be beneficial to one's health as shown in studies of a French population that consumes red wine in moderation with meals while at the same time consuming a fattier diet than Americans. "Resveratrol" and "anti-oxidants" became the buzzwords of the times and sales of red wine here increased 44%. Now reds outsell whites by three to one with parity in the summer when whites taste oh-so-good.

In 2004 the fine film "Sideways" was released with its main character, Miles', memorable polemical outburst against Merlot and advocation of Pinot Noir providing yet another cultural shift in red wine tastes. While jammy Cabernets and other big reds still retain great popularity, lighter, more nuanced reds are now more fully appreciated for their value in the red wine spectrum.

Has there been a down side to this overall arcing growth in wine sales? Actually there have been two. White Zinfandel, accidentally created by a stuck fermentation valve and a perfectly pleasant apertif in its own right, actually became way too popular (if that's possible) and sidetracked would-be wine connosieurs from discovering other offerings by just being so...so... satisfying. Oh, well. The worse screwup in wine growth was the winecooler fad followed by the fruit flavored fifths of clear beverage that mascaraded as wine but if you read the print on the bottle, it wasn't even wine! Wine coolers and these other beverages were actually malt based and consequently more profitable for the producer.

This Friday Mark Caporalis of Rotta Vineyards of Paso Robles and a veteran California winemaker of more than forty years will be here tasting out a lot of his product. For this event we ask a ten dollar charge which is applicable toward a thirty dollar minimum purchase of Rotta wines.