I think intuitively we all believe that US men are not huge wine drinkers. Certainly many do enjoy wine, but walk into any bar and the guys with a beer in their hand will far outnumber those with a nice glass of wine.
I had no idea, however, how lopsided it really is until I cam across an interesting Gallup Poll statistic while reading the article “Joe Six-pack, meet Charles Chardonnay” (6/6/2009, Associate Press). According to a Gallup poll conducted last year 58% of men said that beer is what they drink most often, with only 17% saying wine. Contrast this with women where 43% voice a preference for wine vs. 28% for beer.
Two thinks stand out for me in these numbers.
- The first, clearly men drink more beer than wine. I’d be interested in anybody’s ideas as to why that is…
- The second thing that stands out for me is that for both groups less than half of the people polled are wine drinkers.
So while we all may talk and write about the emerging American wine culture, there is certainly a lot of room for continued growth…
Wine has a lot of room to grow with Americans, especially men. Gallo thinks there is a market with “Redwood Creek” targeting men as wine consumers. One reason I think wine is not as popular is that it seems the beer company’s marketing is much more vast.