Wine and Democracy

Wine and Democracy

In one of local free newspapers that are always lying around the metro stations there was a column lamenting the fact that wine consumption has dropped in Spain. In many European countries that is considered a bad thing and I would agree. People should drink wine, and plenty of it. The author put most of the blame on the fact that restaurants charge too much for wine which has lead to a reduction in restaurant wine sales of 9%. Restaurants here generally charge double the retail price for a bottle of wine and sometimes as much as three times. The author seems to be saying that wine is in danger of losing its democratic and populist standing if it is priced out of reach of consumers, any consumers.

I think that American restaurants begin with three times the retail price and up to four times as much. It isn’t unusual to pay $9-11 for a GLASS of wine in some places. I was at a restaurant in the Chicago area before I came to Spain and I asked the bartender for a modestly-priced glass of wine. She charged me $14. I guess I looked like I had either fallen off the turnip truck that morning or that I was made of money. This was in a decent restaurant but nothing top tier.

In almost every James Bond movie there seems to be an obligatory scene showing Bond as being some sort of incredible wine snob. “Yes, I’ll have the 1962 Chateau Trou du Cul.” Fetishistic wine knowledge is generally portrayed as the height of sophistication and breeding, whatever the hell that is. I don’t think you would ever find Bond buying wine at the bargain rack at Trader Joe’s.

Somewhere between the Bond-esque wine douche bag and the slob who gargles with his vino there is room for the way wine is supposed to be consumed. Wine is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. We produce some of the best wine in the world but there doesn’t seem to be the same effort by producers to reach the entire American market. We still see wine as a luxury.

Wine in Mediterranean countries is seen as more of a basic right, like free speech, than a luxury enjoyed only by the elite. The prices that I would pay at the wine bargain bins back home seem almost extravagant to me here in Spain. The grocery store across the street from my apartment has a fairly large selection of Spanish wines and I don’t think that any are over $10, most are under $5, and there are many for as little as 1€. I wonder which wine Bond would choose.

People sometimes buy an expensive bottle of wine with the intention of keeping it for a special occasion. The wine is supposed to improve with age; at least that’s what the books say. I’ve never been able to keep a good bottle around for very long. The good ones get knocked off right along with the cheaper bottles when you have friends over. Binge drinking has no respect for the connoisseur in us.

The attitude here seems to be. “Today is a pretty good day to drink wine, so why wait?” As far as that fancy bottle you were planning to save, drink it today. You can always go out and buy the same thing when you have something big to celebrate. The point is that you should celebrate every day, or at least every good meal. Any meal that you have taken the trouble to prepare deserves to be served with wine.