Wine Doesn’t Always Accompany Food (But We Knew That)

Though we often like to believe that our penchant for fine wine is simply an efficacious accompaniment to whatever we have on our plates, a recent study of America’s wine drinking habits digresses and instead counters with the sentiment: you’re all a bunch of winos. Wine Opinions, a market research company, unearthed America’s clandestine wine drinking habits with the finding that only 41% of wine in the US is actually consumed alongside a meal. So why has wine been kidnapped from the table? And where has it gone? The results suggest that Americans are embracing wine as not only an alternative beverage in what Wine Opinion chief executive John Gillespie calls “cocktail situations,” but also as an ingratiating member of their daily lives. The survey also found that 19% of wine is consumed with nuts, crackers, chips, and other traditional light snacks, 14% while preparing food, and 26% without any food at all.

The shift in wine’s firmly ensconced position as “that which goes with food” to “that which goes at all times” is indicative of America’s “acculturation,” according to Gillespie “People’s comfort level with wine is beyond what we imagined in the industry.” The New York Times was apparently rather horrified by the report’s findings, with writer Eric Asimov bemoaning “I find the idea of divorcing the two unsettling to say the least.” [New York Times]