Wine Talk: Americans’ Thirst for Wine Is Rising

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/17/dining/17WINE.html?ex=1386997200&amp;en=0800a1e7b350a222&amp;ei=5007&amp;partner=USERLAND">Wine Talk: Americans&rsquo; Thirst for Wine Is Rising</a>: &ldquo;The current wine boom is hardly an overnight phenomenon. Wine Institute figures show that after some particularly rocky years in the 1980&rsquo;s, wine consumption in the United States has more than doubled in 12 years, up an estimated 88 million cases this year from the 1991 figure.



&ldquo;As [Jon Fredrikson, a partner in Gomberg, Fredrikson &amp; Associates, a San Francisco-based consulting firm that has been tracking the wine industry for 55 years,] noted, 1992, when the boom began, was the year following the revelation of the so-called French Paradox, a study that claimed that the foie-gras-eating French had fewer problems with obesity and cardiovascular illness than Americans.



&ldquo;The reason, the researchers said, was wine, particularly red wine, which the French drank much more of than Americans did. Sales of red wine in this country took off in 1992 and have increased every year since. According to data gathered by the A. C. Nielsen company, red wines accounted for 17 percent of the United States market in 1991, 25 percent in 1995 and 39 percent in 2002. That is confirmation of sorts of the old Burgundian adage that wine has but one responsibility, and that is to be red.&rdquo;