W
L
THE CURIOUS QUAFFER
OUR ‘LOVE’ OF WINE!
We all love a glass or two of wine – don’t we? Wherever and whenever
we go to the supermarket we find shelf after shelf packed full of wine.
The choice seems to be endless these days. The newspapers we read
often feature articles about wine, we are bombarded with offers from
wine retailers, left right and centre, and we are surrounded by wine
clubs. There are magazines solely dedicated to wine and year after
year more books are published about wine and the wine world.
As we move into a new decade, and this is the first article I have penned
in it, I thought it would be interesting to delve into the UK’s drinking
culture. Are we a country that loves a drink and, if so, where does wine
fit in, when compared with other drinks? Are we really a nation of wine
lovers, of wine guzzlers or of wine enthusiasts; or is this all this just a
myth, totally unsupported by evidence? If true though, then where does
all our wine come from?
So, as we enter the 20’s, what does the data, what does the evidence,
tell us about the UK, its drinking culture and wine? Does it support
the theory that we are a nation of drinkers, that we love wine and that
everywhere we care to look, wine is there in some shape or form, staring
us in the eye?
Are we big drinkers in the UK?
According to recent research Britons consume 9.7 litres of pure alcohol
each year. This is the equivalent to 108 bottles of 12% wine a year, or
342 pints of 5% beer each year. Wow! These figures were revealed in
the ‘Health at a Glance 2019’ report compiled by the Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data used was
based on sales of alcoholic beverages in 2017 across 44 countries and
was designed to focus on the health and wellbeing of populations in
developed countries across the world.
American drinkers consume an average of 8.9 litres of pure alcohol
a year, which was also the mean average of all nations polled for the
report. However, as well as the USA we, in the UK, consume more
alcohol than the Spanish and the Italians – but not the French. The
report records that the French drink 11.7 litres each year. In Germany
the average consumption is 10.9 litres.
The list is actually topped by Lithuania, followed by Austria, France, the
Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Ireland. At the other end of the scale,
Turkey, Israel, India, Costa Rica, Mexico and Colombia all drink fewer
than 5 litres each.
42 wirrallife.com
Interesting stuff – but yes, as you will all have guessed, we do drink a
lot of alcohol in the UK! In fact, we drink well above the average and,
of course, this does, as it should, flag up potential health issues for
us all. Notwithstanding, there is a considerable amount of literature
around, and which has been around for some time now, which suggests
that drinking wine in moderation provides antioxidant and anti-
inflammatory benefits that have significant health benefits – boosting
things like your heart health, your mental health and even your
longevity. Most of this research has concentrated on red wine. In one
study Swedish researchers reported that, compared to teetotallers, light
drinkers who consumed wine cut their risk of dying prematurely by
almost one third, and wine drinkers as a group had significantly lower
mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer. I guess the word
‘moderation’ is the key here then!
Where does wine feature when it comes to our favourite ‘tipple’?
So, we are a nation of drinkers. Perhaps not a surprise. But where
does wine fit in with the drinking public, compared to other alcoholic
beverages? A recent YouGov survey of consumers found that, among
adults who had drunk alcohol in the previous 12 months, wine was
drunk by 81% of people, narrowly beating both beer (79%) and spirits
(79%) to the top spot. This equates, if translated across the population,
to some 33 million people in the UK who had drunk wine in the
previous year.
What about people’s favourite drink though? When asked about their
favourite drink, wine came out on top again. This time some 28% of
people stated that wine was their tipple of choice, compared with 23%
who said they preferred beer, in second place, and 21% opting for spirits,
in third place.
So, again, the evidence is pretty conclusive. Not only do a very large
number of people in the UK drink wine; it is the nation’s favourite drink
too.
So what are the UK’s favourite wines?
We have so much choice these days, when it comes to wine. As each
year passes we find new wines, made from different grapes, involving
different or new blends, from different countries. However have we,
in the UK, stayed with the mainstream, the tried and tested, when it
comes to wine? Even if we have tried something different, a bit out of the
ordinary perhaps, do we still head for the mainstream stuff?