Wine consumption throughout the USA

Wine has played an important part in United States history, since the 1500s (with Spanish and French settlers; see: The evolution of wine in America). As but one example, it has been noted (In Vino Veritas):

According to records, in 1801 Thomas Jefferson spent “$6500 for provisions and groceries, $2700 for servants (some of whom were liveried), $500 for Lewis’s salary, and $3,000 for wine”, after taking up residence in the President’s House, upon his inauguration as the third president of the United States.

So, they spent half as much money on wine as on food. Those politicians and their guests did quite well for themselves, didn’t they? *

We might therefore now look at wine in the modern U.S. world.

We could start by simply looking at the amount of wine consumed per person per year, over the past century or so. This is shown in the above graph (from: U.S. wine consumption), based on all wine types including sparkling wine, dessert wine, vermouth, other special natural and table wine. Clearly, there has been a general increase in consumption per person through time, illustrating a growing wine industry.

Note the dip 1943—1947, with the exception of 1946. The reason for this should be obvious, given world events at the time. On the other hand, the dip during the period 1987—2006 seems to be based on a shift in both population (ie. the baby boomers coming of age), along with a decrease in the concentration of the alcohol consumed (eg. less vermouth, more light beer). Also, an increase in alternative alcoholic beverages, such as craft beers, and spirits-based cocktails.

As an aside, the Portuguese apparently consume more wine than any other country worldwide (13.7 gallons per person), followed by the French (12.4 gallons) (from: Average per capita consumption of wine in leading countries worldwide in 2022). Those Americans are way behind!

The dip in U.S. consumption in the past few years has been the subject of extensive commentary in the media, there currently being major wine over-supply relative to demand (What’s driving wine’s structural decline?). This situation shows no signs of changing any time soon (Why 2025 ‘will be a telling year in the wine industry’).

We can now move on to a look at the individual states of the USA. The next graph shows each state as a dot, located based on the state population (horizontally) and the 2022 per person wine consumption (vertically) (data from: Which states consume the most wine? and List of U.S. states and territories by population).

Clearly, most of the states form a blob in the middle of the graph, all therefore being somewhat similar. This is to be expected, culturally.

Note, however, that the most populous states (at the right of the graph) have medium consumption per person. On the other hand, it is some of the smaller states (at the top of the graph) that have the highest consumption per person. From the top, these states are: District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Vermont and Delaware. Does this surprise you? The lowest consumption is in West Virginia and Kansas (at the bottom of the graph).

Mind you, consumption volume has generally been down recently in most of the states of the USA (Areas of strength amid wine consumption shrinkage in the US). Interestingly, some of the biggest dips (–5% or more) have been in D.C. (at the top of the graph) and Kansas (at the bottom).

Finally, we could look at a few individual cities, in terms of the current average cost of their wines (from: Most expensive cities for wine are all in the US). This table lists the top 11 in the world, this year, with 8 of them being in the USA. Note the presence of San Francisco and Oakland, but not, for example, Los Angeles.

Rank	City	State / Province	Average price of a bottle of wine (US$)
1	New York	NY	$20.00
2	Columbus	OH	$18.00
3a	San Francisco	CA	$17.75
3b	Oakland	CA	$17.75
4	Philadelphia	PA	$17.00
5a	Launceston	Tasmania	$16.45
5b	Hobart	Tasmania	$16.45
6a	Washington	DC	$16.00
6b	Denver	CO	$16.00
7	Tucson	AZ	$15.50
8	Victoria	British Columbia	$15.30

So, there you have it. Wine consumption is decreasing, but this matters more in some states than in others; and there are definitely some cities not to drink wine in!

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* For a recent discussion of the United Kingdom government’s wine cellar (£3.8 million = $5 million), see: UK government spends over £97,000 restocking its wine cellar.

Quotes from famous people about wine and its role in our lives

In a previous post on Interesting wine quotes from famous people, I collated three dozen quotations from over the past three millennia. It was apparently quite a popular post, as I tried to pick ones that are cheering. So, here I add another three dozen. This time I also include quotes from people born after 1900, and also a few from less famous people.

• “Good company, good wine, good welcome can make good people.” ― William Shakespeare (1564—1616) [Henry VIII, Act I, Scene iv]
  
• “My nose itched, and I knew I should drink wine or kiss a fool.” ― Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
• “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” ― Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
• “In life, as with wines, you have to appreciate the journey as much as the destination.” ― Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
• “One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.” ― Samuel Johnson
• “Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.” ― Samuel Johnson
• “I love everything that is old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines.” — Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
• “Wine cheers the sad, revives the old, inspires the young, and makes weariness forget his toil.” ― George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) (1788—1824)
• “Wine is life. It's the union of the earth with the sun; it’s the essence of time captured in a bottle.” ― Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
• “Wine is the intellectual part of a meal while meat is the material.” ― Alexandre Dumas (1802―1870)
• “Better is old wine than new, and old friends like-wise.” ― Charles Kingsley (1819—1875)
• “One not only drinks wine, one smells it, observes it, tastes it, sips it and — one talks about it.” — Albert Edward of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (King Edward VII) (1841—1910)
• “A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
• “Just as the best wines undergo fermentation, life’s challenges refine us into our best selves.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Alcohol is the anaesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.” ― George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
• “Wine comes in at the mouth and love comes in at the eye; that’s all we shall know for truth before we grow old and die.” ― William Butler Yeats (1865—1939)
• “Gentlemen, in the little moment that remains to us between the crisis and the catastrophe, we may as well drink a glass of Champagne.” ― Paul Claudel (1868—1955)
• “Wine makes every meal an occasion, every table more elegant, every day more civilized.” ― André Simon (1877—1970)
• “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” ― Charles De Gaulle, President of France (1890—1970) *
• “I shall drink no wine before it’s time! OK, it’s time.” ― Groucho Marx (1890—1977)
• “Wine is the most civilized thing in the world, and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range for enjoyment and appreciation than, possibly, any other purely sensory thing.” ― Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961)
• “The connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes of its secrets.” ― Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
• “If food is the body of good living, wine is its soul.” ― Clifton Fadiman (1904—1999)
• “A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover.” ― Clifton Fadiman
• “There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.” ― Bette Davis (1908—1989)
• “Wine to me is passion. It’s family and friends. It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit.” ― Robert Mondavi (1913—2008)
• “Making good wine is a skill; making fine wine is an art.” ― Robert Mondavi
• “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the Bible says love your enemy.” ― Frank Sinatra (1915—1998)
• “The first kiss and the first glass of wine are the best.” — Marty Rubin (1930—1994)
• “Being a wine enthusiast means you care more about quality than quantity.” ― Jean-Claude Carrière (1931—2021)
• Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.” ― Joan Collins (1933— )
• “We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.” ― Eduardo Galeano (1940—2015)
• “More important than the food pairing is the person with whom you drink the wine.” ― Christian Moueix (1946— )
• “Compromises are for relationships, not wine.” ― Robert Scott Caywood (1961—)
• “Wine is, perhaps, the closest thing the planet has to an elixir of life.” ― Thom Elkjer (1980— )
• “Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.” ― Robert Fripp (1946— )

* Okay, so it is not exactly wine, although there the sentiment would be the same. Besides, de Gaulle’s estimate, made in 1962, was a lowball ― France boasts 1,000―1,600 varieties of cheese.