Don’t forget the 21% who are Muslim
And atheist?
The atheist Muslims stick to craft beers. 
This thread is too sad
This is the James Suckling scoring system.
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Re polls vs reality … wouldn‘t it be true for the USA that pollsters call in by phone/landline and most everybody below the average age of this esteemed board would just not pick up such unknown number or wouldn‘t have a phone with known number to call for pollsters in the first place?
Seems like pretty much most polls I have been reading about for the last few years (on Biden / Trump or more local elections) had been leaning red and reality showed much more blue then … wouldn‘t the consensus be that polling acuracy has been trending downward and shown to lean too much right?
No, I don’t think that has been the case.
“As recent years have proved, polling is often, sometimes heavily, incorrect. Case in point: Polling generated by HuffPost on Election Day 2016 concluded that Hillary Clinton had a 98% chance of beating Trump. While the polls that year were dramatically wrong, most polling throughout the 2020 election cyclecorrectly predicted that Biden would defeat Trump. So given that polling accuracy has been on both sides of the coin, how much trust should the public place in polls?”
But we really shouldn’t be talking about that angle of it on Wine Talk.
It’s interesting how much attention gets paid to some of the groups above in the media, so people think it’s a bigger group than it is.
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The landline/cellphone question has been resolved now when it comes to polling.
22 midterms had some very accurate and inaccurate polling done.
I think this thread conflates two economic trends.
For high-end/collectible wines prices have been softening over the last 18m/post Covid because most millionaires and billionaires bought a sh*t ton of wine during COVID and are no longer at home/on their yacht with nothing else to do other than buy stuff online. This is true across almost all collectibles despite most wealthy people in the US and globally continuing to be better off financially.
For most wines that are in the sub-$100 level, there is likely a shift in demand generationally as core consumers/boomers age and become more health-conscious and drink a bit less and younger buyers are either drinking less and/or shifting to cocktails and beer. My gut is that wineries have (like restaurants) always had a very high failure/financial loss rate and that Covid may have been an outlier for those with a strong DTC market channel.
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Very well stated!
Falling wine prices are very good for consumers.
I am happy to see this long-awaited reversal.
We are tired of buying wine but mainly paying for real estate.
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I’ve shared that talk to a bunch of people, I really liked it.
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That’s funny, but seems to imply that they rely heavily on a distinct segment of the population for their polling.
I’ve no doubt that is true, but I think the regular drinkers are also aware of wine prices on their boring choices, provided the price is high enough. For example, if someone likes Rombauer chardonnay, they likely know they can buy a bottle for $40, so when a restaurant is selling them a bottle for $120 they realize that they will be paying $80 extra for the privilege of drinking that Rombauer in the restaurant. Or they want a chardonnay/white and think it’s crazy to spend $100+ on a bottle. They will then move to cheaper offerings, either a cheaper bottle of wine, a cheap by-the-glass wine or beer.
(full disclosure, I like Rombauer chardonnay)
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Not really tbh. If someone is a Rombauer drinker, yes they know it’s cheaper at retail. But, it’s also a chance for them to flex and show their wine knowledge in front of their friends or they’re on an expense account at a steakhouse (same goes for Silver Oak). They aren’t thinking like you and that’s totally fine. Just understand that your perspective is one that fits a very small keyhole of the wine buying public
That is fair since I’ve no experience in restaurants other than the occasional meal out. But then if your examples represent the average restaurant patron, then it seems most patrons are fine with boring wine lists full of stuff you can easily buy at retail for 1/3rd the price. Is that how you see it? If that is true, then wine programs at the vast majority of American restaurants should be doing great.
I’ve seen your posts on a few threads and you seem to have a good understanding about restaurants. My question is not meant to be inflammatory but to understand.
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$120 for wine on a list is $120 hence BTG being more appealing to the general public right now with the state of the economy. I’m sure its been said here before, but it’d be interesting to see how many bottles are sold off the list (and its average bottle cost) vs. how many bottles are used for BTG during a given month or year. I’d suspect with the current economy, bottles off the list are down of late.
I used to look at a restaurants wine lists all the time to see what they have. Now I don’t even look at it as its shocking how much they want for the usual suspects that are at large chain grocery stores. I know I’m in a very demographic of the wine buying public, but damn, list wines are so out of my price range.
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Not all restaurants are the same nor are they meant to be the same. But, on the whole, a lot of lists are “boring” because they’re put together by general managers that are just trying to crush costs and utilize a beverage program to make profit where food is on short margin. Plus, your average Rombauer or Silver Oak drinker just wants that or something like it and buying some Josh Cab for $10 a glass won’t cut it, so they’ll pay the mark up because such wines are what they want. Also, don’t forget what corporate dollars can be used for dinners. When it’s not on your dime, who cares?!
That said, in no way, shape, or form do all restaurants do great. There’s a litany of other costs that can go into it all that makes it a near impossible to last even 3 years.
Btg is a cash cow. Simply put. When I did distribution, ofc a bottle sale would be nice and add to my monthly total. When I actually made money, it was from having btg placements where they’d crush through cases of that wine in a week.
This is close to ten years ago now, but a friend who was the somm at a now gone local restaurant told me in confidence how much inventory he’d go through on even a mid-level btg pour in a week and my eyes basically bugged out. That place was known by wine geeks and he encouraged it, but wine geeks were a very small segment of the diners and his btg pours were some of the best money makers for that restaurant (as well as their event space)
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