America’s relationship with wine By Culinate staff March 23, 2011

In an international upset, the U.S. recently knocked France off the pedestal reserved for the World’s Biggest Wine Consumer. Of course, as the Independent noted, since the U.S. population is five times that of France, per capita wine consumption is still higher in Gaul.

Even as our wine consumption goes up, our tolerance for wine froufrou may be running dry. As Slate recently declared, fancy wine labels correlate more to high prices than to actual flavor: “When it comes to invoking elegance, foreign and complex words have a natural advantage. Cigars and truffle conjure up prestige and luxury.” A cheap wine, in other words, is just grape juice.

(Cheers to Minnesota food reporter Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl for the links.)

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