I am clearly having more time again, and I relish being able to read through blog posts again. It’s inspiring, and I have missed being able to do so over the last couple of months. Given that, it’s also time to resuscitate my Sunday Read column. I doubt it will get back to a full regular schedule, but I still want to use it to point you to articles I liked or consider interesting/thought-provoking.
In 2012, a Sunday Read pointed to Liz Thach’s post on statistics on the US wine industry. The other day, I cam across her Trends in the US Wine Industry for 2015 post, which is based on the 2015 Unified Wine Symposium and some articles. Thach is a professor at Sonoma State University and the geek in me gets a kick out of her bibliography at the end of the article.
Things that impressed me most in this article:
- California’s dominance in the market (60%!!)
- Per capita consumption is still low at 2.82 gallons (10.7 liters). That’s not a lot by any measure. These Wine Institute numbers for 2012 (it’s the most recent I could find – the US consumed 10.42 liters in 2012) indicate France consuming 44.19 liters (so roughly four times that), Switzerland drinking 40.44 liters, and even beer-addicted Germans drining 23.98 liters. Note that the Vatican tops the list at 73.78 liters annually per capita!!!
- 36% of consumers using a wine app to check reviews or compare prices when shopping for wine. I guess not having a smartphone is the reason why it’s hard for me to wrap my head around that.
Have a great Sunday, and keep warm!
the winegetter 
The Vatican tidbit is interesting although not surprising since it’s not exactly a large or diverse population living there. I wonder if they buy all that wine for parties?
I also think it’s amazing how low the average price is for a bottle of wine sold in the U.S. — “75% of wine sold was under $9 per bottle.” It is natural to imagine one’s seld as the typical consumer but, since we are all reading and commenting about wine, we are probably not the typical consumer!
Hi Andrew, and thanks for commenting! The average price numbers are stunning in pretty much every country. I think in Germany, the average price per bottle sold is around $3.50 or so. Can you imagine that?
And re the Vatican: Yeah, it’s definitely an anomaly, and who knows what parties they use it for…^^
Keeps me in business – and that’s keeping it 100% real here in the wine country yo!
The Vatican… Amazing! That confirms it, wine IS sent from god :) Interesting numbers, thanks for sharing!
Glad Sunday read is back! I have and use the smartphone very actively – but I’m not the part of the 36%… At t he most, I might use wine-searcher to check the prices…
I can definitely see the value of checking prices to see how reasonably or unreasonably the wine is priced.
Interesting! Not too surprised about the California thing- people see California and immediately think it’ll be good. It dominates most restaurant menus as well.
Very true.