When Wine Is Really Nothing More than Wet Sugar
“66% mix wine with fruit or fruit juice”
This according to the findings in E. & J. Gallo Winery Consumer Wine Trends Survey. And to be a bit more accurate, this is the finding among wine drinkers aged 25-40.
The folks at Gallo see this disclosure by the 25-40 year-olds they surveyed and interpret it this way:
“seemingly unbound by traditions that have often governed wine. Unlike previous generations, they are experimenting with different ways to enjoy wine and are unapologetic about their choices.”
There is a better way to interpret the finding that 66% of this age group mixes their wine with fruit or fruit juice: They don’t like wine.
Isn’t this absolutely clear? Dropping strawberries or apple juice into your wine is certainly a “different way to enjoy wine”. But it’s really the way people drink wine when really don’t like wine. This also looks suspiciously like a homemade wine cooler, which was (and I guess still is to the extent that they exist) a liquid for young people who need significant sweetness in their wine in order to get the stuff down.
In any case, this should be exciting news for Moscato makers everywhere. They can rest easy knowing the younger thinks wet sugar is still the bee’s knees.
this is good news. It’s a gateway beverage to fine wine, just like the wine coolers referenced as well as white Zin, Apothic and even Ménage a Troise with its RS
I used to drink something like fruit juice wine in my youth. I think we called it Lancers.
Adding fruit juice to wine sounds a lot better than the stuff we used to drink before our palates became more sophisticated. How about “Annie Green Springs”, Ripple and a host of other flavored and processed rot-gut?
[…] friend Tom Wark has an interesting take on a Gallo study that indicated two-thirds of Millennials mix wine with fruit or fruit juice. As the commenters note, we used to call that […]
We definitely should be reducing the amount of sugar in our diets, not increasing it like this. Thanks for the article, keep up the awesome blog!