10 things winemakers won’t tell you

Aug 1, 2014

(MW) - What goes into your glass of Pinot? Food coloring, weird additives, and a 400% markup.

1. You’ll be just as happy with the cheap stuff

We’re number one! In 2013, Americans consumed 321 million cases of wine—up 15% from 2005, according to research firm Impact Databank. That solidified our status as the world’s top wine-drinking nation in terms of volume, though we rank only 12th in consumption per person among major wine-drinking countries, far behind top-ranked France. Wine sales in the U.S., meanwhile, grew from $34.5 billion in 2005 to $43.9 billion last year.

Our growing thirst for vino is fueling a boom in U.S. winemaking: The number of wineries in the U.S. jumped more than 80% in the past decade, to around 8,000, according to WineAmerica, the trade group for American wineries. Many of these wine startups are small, boutique wineries, aiming at the premium end of the market with bottles priced at $20 or more.

But research suggests that most of us needn’t buy premium to indulge our love of wine. In blind taste tests, consumers—when they weren’t aware ahead of time of the price of a wine—slightly preferred cheaper wines, according to one of the most comprehensive studies on the topic, published in the Journal of Wine Economics in 2008 . “The correlation between price and overall rating is small and negative, suggesting that individuals on average enjoy more expensive wines slightly less,” wrote the authors, who analyzed the results of more than 6,000 tastings.


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