As this Washington Post article from today reports, wine bars are rapidly revealing themselves to be a growth industry. They continue to spring up in the Washington D.C. area and this article highlights five that are now doing business, four in Northwest (not surprisingly). While D.C.-centric, I suspect a nearly identical article could be written or will soon be written in many other large cities throughout the United States.
In addition to wine bars, it is becoming more and more commonplace to find wine-centric restaurants with substantial by the glass wine menus. This is great news for casual wine consumers, most especially those who are looking for variety and an opportunity to try lots of different things, or even dabble in high end concoctions, while not endangering little Timmy's college fund with their Mastercard payments.
As has been reported in many places recently, U.S. per capita wine consumption has risen substantially over the past 15 years. There is no reason to believe that this trending away from spirits and beer towards wine will not continue in the coming years. Wine may be taking a big bite out of teetotalism as well since it enjoys a much healthier image. This has led to substantial growth in what I call the “middle-class” of wine consumerism.
At one end of the wine-buying spectrum is the “Joe and Jane Sixpack” consumer who very rarely dabbles in anything more expensive than Sutter Home and Yellowtail offerings. Chances are, most of these consumers will never have any real interest in delving deeper into wine and consider it an inconvenience if a wine is not available in a 1.5L bottle. At the other end is the very conspicuous 1-2% of consumers who have been parked on cult cabernet waiting lists for years and have a wine cellar full of Screaming Eagle and Gaja Barolo (or long desperately for same). Some might call this group “wine snobs”, but that would probably be an unfair generalization. In between these two extremes of regular wine consumption is a larger group of wine-interested consumers with a lot of discretionary dollars to spend. If the recent wine bar craze continues to propagate, it will be these consumers that support that growth.
Let's be honest. These people rarely, if ever, dine at restaurants awarded the Wine Spectator Grand Award. As such, the existing fine wine and dine infrastructure has not been well-positioned to cash in. These new wine bars and the growing breed of wine-centric restaurants springing up in the suburbs are.
I am inclined to think that wines by the glass will prove to be a large facet of wine consumption's continued growth. Imagine the following wine consumer inner monologue:
“Vacqueryas? What in the hell is Vacqueryas?”
If this monologue is occurring in a wine shop, that consumer is likely to move onto more comfortable pastures and buy a bottle of Aussie Shiraz or Argentine Malbec. In a wine bar, on the other hand, the same consumer's sense of adventure (which is inevitably tempered with frugality) will probably be more than willing to pay $5 for that 3oz. tasting pour.
Of course, if there is a buck to be made, it is only a matter of time before the three or four huge corporations that seem to own practically every full service restaurant chain in this country are building “McWine and Tapas” bars in every shopping center parking lot within 20 miles of your home. Only the future will tell if this is a good thing or not.
Oh, and one more thing. All you eligible bachelor wine enthusiasts take note of this sentence from the article:
“Almost every owner and manager interviewed for this story estimated that 90 percent of their customers are female, even though they do not market specifically to women.”
Perhaps your Ms. Right is, right this very moment, sipping a glass of Riesling in the wine bar down the block. Stop what you're doing and go look.
In addition to wine bars, it is becoming more and more commonplace to find wine-centric restaurants with substantial by the glass wine menus. This is great news for casual wine consumers, most especially those who are looking for variety and an opportunity to try lots of different things, or even dabble in high end concoctions, while not endangering little Timmy's college fund with their Mastercard payments.
As has been reported in many places recently, U.S. per capita wine consumption has risen substantially over the past 15 years. There is no reason to believe that this trending away from spirits and beer towards wine will not continue in the coming years. Wine may be taking a big bite out of teetotalism as well since it enjoys a much healthier image. This has led to substantial growth in what I call the “middle-class” of wine consumerism.
At one end of the wine-buying spectrum is the “Joe and Jane Sixpack” consumer who very rarely dabbles in anything more expensive than Sutter Home and Yellowtail offerings. Chances are, most of these consumers will never have any real interest in delving deeper into wine and consider it an inconvenience if a wine is not available in a 1.5L bottle. At the other end is the very conspicuous 1-2% of consumers who have been parked on cult cabernet waiting lists for years and have a wine cellar full of Screaming Eagle and Gaja Barolo (or long desperately for same). Some might call this group “wine snobs”, but that would probably be an unfair generalization. In between these two extremes of regular wine consumption is a larger group of wine-interested consumers with a lot of discretionary dollars to spend. If the recent wine bar craze continues to propagate, it will be these consumers that support that growth.
Let's be honest. These people rarely, if ever, dine at restaurants awarded the Wine Spectator Grand Award. As such, the existing fine wine and dine infrastructure has not been well-positioned to cash in. These new wine bars and the growing breed of wine-centric restaurants springing up in the suburbs are.
I am inclined to think that wines by the glass will prove to be a large facet of wine consumption's continued growth. Imagine the following wine consumer inner monologue:
“Vacqueryas? What in the hell is Vacqueryas?”
If this monologue is occurring in a wine shop, that consumer is likely to move onto more comfortable pastures and buy a bottle of Aussie Shiraz or Argentine Malbec. In a wine bar, on the other hand, the same consumer's sense of adventure (which is inevitably tempered with frugality) will probably be more than willing to pay $5 for that 3oz. tasting pour.
Of course, if there is a buck to be made, it is only a matter of time before the three or four huge corporations that seem to own practically every full service restaurant chain in this country are building “McWine and Tapas” bars in every shopping center parking lot within 20 miles of your home. Only the future will tell if this is a good thing or not.
Oh, and one more thing. All you eligible bachelor wine enthusiasts take note of this sentence from the article:
“Almost every owner and manager interviewed for this story estimated that 90 percent of their customers are female, even though they do not market specifically to women.”
Perhaps your Ms. Right is, right this very moment, sipping a glass of Riesling in the wine bar down the block. Stop what you're doing and go look.
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