There’s been some great debate on the twitter lines since I posted my blog stating only 7% of regular wine drinkers are highly involved. Quite frankly, they couldn’t give a monkeys about tannic profile nor malolactic fermentation.
Now we have a question, how do we get more people, particularly young people, drinking wine. Clearly, we need to have a bit more fun, and stop taking ourselves so seriously as @NicoJamesBCN and @gormanmcadams posted.
Which brings me to wine tastings. I’ve just attended a cocktail competition, where the average age of contestants didn’t even reach the mid 20s. These bartenders are passionate about booze but they also love to have a good time, turning up in fancy dress just because they could. There were oompa-loompahs, pandas and pirates aplenty. We could learn a thing or two from them. I’m not advocating we all dress up as characters out of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory instead of starched shirts but it does help you to have a bloody good time.
Wine tastings and competitions are unimaginative, particuarly large consumer events with tables around the edge of the room and the winemaker stood at the table telling us about what fruits we should be tasting. It’s the same old format every time. No wonder it puts young and old off.
In another tweet from the lovely Robert Joseph, he said: ‘We’re in the same hole as classical music. We have to make ourselves more attractive’ adding, ‘The problem is ours not the consumers’. We’re obsessed with them needing education.’ He has a point. What if people just want to drink the stuff and be damned with the preaching?
Wine writers, me included on occasions, also have to lighten up. Writing should primarily be entertaining, and informative second. Don’t fill the page with sleep-inducing facts. We need a page-turning Bill Bryson of wine to make us laugh. There’s so much to do but we need to put our heads together to come up with a light bulb moment.
