The wine diet is my mea culpa for suggesting that a Gallup Poll about wine’s decreasing popularity might be accurate
The Wine Curmudgeon stands properly chastised after this week’s post asking whether Americans are turning away from wine. My tiny part of the Internet went crazy – two-thirds more visitors to the blog than normal, comments and emails, and posts on other websites questioning my credulity and sanity.
Because, of course, Americans love wine. What does Gallup know about polling?
So I must hang my head in shame. Who cares that one visitor emailed, “You hit the nail on the head regarding why wine sales have slumped. I never was a beer drinker until all these great craft beers began appearing on the scene and the price of a ‘good’ glass of wine at restaurants kept going up. Why should I pay $12-$14 for a glass of wine when I can have a really good craft beer for $6?”
Or that another left a comment, saying, “A lot of people are turning away from activities, purchases, and lifestyles that seem to be an integral part of anything associated with snobs and pseudo wealth. Wine falls into that category.”
Because, of course, Americans love wine, and anyone who disagrees with that isn’t a real wine drinker. As one very critical visitor suggested recently, I am entirely too negative about wine, as well as a coward. That the visitor apparently used a fake name is probably my fault, too.
Hence this post about the wine diet, which is my way to make amends for any damage I have done by writing honestly and sincerely about the wine business. Because, of course, Americans love wine, so what need is there for me to do what I do?
Women’s Health magazine reports that “Any diet that tells women to eat chocolate and chase it with wine certainly has our attention. … That pretty much explains why the ‘sirtfood diet’ is blowing up right now.”
So forget about varietal correctness or value or quality or fake oak or Mega Purple or letting us know what’s actually in the wine we drink. That’s all curmudgeonly foolishness. All we need to know is that drinking wine will help us lose weight, and we should spend as much money as possible to buy all the wine we can so we will lose lots and lots of weight.
Sigh. And even writing that probably won’t be enough to please the wine business, which considers anything other than Winestream Media-style affection for its products to be disloyal and subversive. Because, of course, Americans love wine, and who am I to argue with that?