The Whys of Wine - What is up with America?

What IS up with American wine drinking? Our loyal blog reader Emanuele asked this question in response to my call out for questions to start the Friday Whys of Wine (Whine?) tradition.

Considering Emanuele is an (probably our only) Italian reader, he wonders about the differences he has heard about with regards to wine sales and wine consumption in U.S. I recently told him about a post from November in Dr. Vino's blog called "Why do American Elementary Schools Equate Wine with Pot?" about this anti-drug pamphlet that Dr. Vino Jr. brought home from school. The pamphlet showed lots of wine bottles and grouped them in with some illegal drugs.

In contrast, Emanuele's brother worked on a project with children in Ciro' Marina, Calabria, in Southern Italy. In teaching middle school children how to market and use art for promotional purposes, each child created an original ad campaign for Ciro' wine, their most famous DOC:



I think there are a couple of things in play here -

1) Prohibition-era laws and the influence of, you know, Prohibition - Most of the distribution and sales laws in many states are were created right after Prohibition in the late 1920's. Some have not yet been changed! Many are undergoing court cases currently (MA and TX just received decisions) about selling wine across state lines and opening up their wine market. I think this will continue and hopefully wine sale prices will become a little more fair. But some of these Prohibition mentalities die hard. Alcohol in all forms, be it vodka or Chianti, is seen as dangerous intoxicating stuff that must be regulated! Ironically there is a lot more binge drinking in the U.S. among teens and college students. This is a longer discussion than I can go into here, but I think the "taboo" that surrounds it is part of making that happen. I hope that over time, wine becomes more of a part of a meal in the United States, and is no longer grouped in with hard liquor.

2) Wine history - Obviously Europe has a much longer history of viticulture than the United States. Way longer. Like 4000 years of history compared to our 200. This is why the middle school kids in Calabria are already defending winemaking - their parents might be winemakers, or a family member, or a friend. This is not the case in the United States. Even California, our shining example of wine country, has not been a fully developed region until the 1960's. So regular wine drinking as part of a meal and wine making by Americans is fairly new. Although things move fast in the United States, wine is still not part of our daily culture. I hope to change this!

Thanks, Emanuele for the first Whys of Wine question! Coming up soon - why does Champagne have bubbles and how do they get in the bottle? Do you have a question? Need to buy a wine for dinner with a friend? Want to know what to serve with your favorite chicken recipe? Let me know in the comments here!