<p>Thanks lilmom, guess it’s obvious I like a little relaxation :)</p>
<p>A standard 6 oz glass of dry wine with 15% alcohol has 175 calories but there are wines with 11% alcohol which would have fewer calories. I drink only red wine; it relaxes me and occasionally getting tipsy works for me too. The health benefits are definitely a bonus since most everything else I like is not good for me.</p>
<p>I’m half Italian so in my family, wine has always been popular:) When I was in college in the 70’s I drank wine, but I knew almost no one else who did. I seem to remember that wine became more popular in the 80’s.</p>
<p>What makes one WANT a good craft beer? Or a good slice of cheesecake, or a good steak? The taste is the reason for me. A good wine can add elegance to a meal, be a nice final note to a fine dinner, or add a cooling note on a warm day that beats water or soda. </p>
<p>My H isn’t a wine drinker, but he can tell you why Beer A has notes of clove and why that matters, why Beer B is best drunk warm and in a snifter, and why Beer C is best on a hot summer day with a burger. I’m nowhere near as sophisticated about wine, but I CAN tell the difference between good and bad, dry and sweet, etc. </p>
<p>It’s got little to do with relaxation or being tipsy-the taste doesn’t matter much for those purposes. I take it you don’t drink? Good wine has been around pretty much forever, but I think it’s becoming easier to produce outside the “traditional” locations and it’s also legal to sell in different types of stores in many states-when I was in college only “package stores” sold wine-now I can go into Walgreens and get something half decent.</p>
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<p>More like 7000 BC – wine is one of the oldest known food stuffs in the world and for most of human history some form of wine was the drink of choice, over water, milk, etc. Fermented drinks were less likely to carry bacteria than untreated water, milk.</p>
<p>I think much of this “new popularity” is regional. Marketers such as Costco (THE biggest seller of wine on the planet) and Trader Joes have expanded across the country to areas where wine was at one time an oddity and the wine that WAS available before this expansion, was pretty bad. Add to this the life changing experience of cheap international travel.
Where I have lived and grown up, wine has just been a wonderful part of life.</p>
<p>Correct , as noted earlier, I rarely drink anything. Just seems wherever I am, people are talking like they can’t wait to eat to their next glass of wine - this just seems new as of the last couple of years. </p>
<p>No judging- as a non drinker, I just don’t understand the draw!!!</p>
<p>beer ranges 3-7% alcohol per volume and wine is more like 14%</p>
<p>Some of the beers my H has discovered are 9% and up-some of it is called barely wine. I think it’s awful, but he loves it-actually keeps lists of what he likes and doesn’t. But he doesn’t like ANY wine. GO figure.</p>
<p>I honestly can’t remember a time when wine was NOT a big deal! As long as I’ve been of drinking age (I drank before that, but cheap stuff) it has been popular in my social and business circles. These days I am seeing a lot more interest in craft beers and there are a lot of fun beer tastings around here. My daughter and son in law are quite knowledgable about beers, wine and whiskeys and it’s all very interesting, but I am no expert. I like most of it! 
I like the taste. I like the relaxation. I like the social aspects. I am a competitive runner, and both wine and beer are a big part of our post-race activities!</p>
<p>When I was in college we drank mixed drinks at parties and in grad school we served alcoholic punch, but all the faculty/student events featured wine and cheese. I learned to drink wine in 1973 on a gap year in France. I started getting interested in wine when I joined my now husband out in California in 1982. I think there was a big uptick in interest in wine when California wines first beat out French ones at a well publicized wine tasting: [Judgment</a> of Paris (wine) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)]Judgment”>Judgment of Paris (wine) - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>If anything, I get the feeling people are drinking a lot more cocktails than they use to!</p>
<p>real men drink beer</p>
<p>“If anything, I get the feeling people are drinking a lot more cocktails than they use to!”</p>
<p>Agreed! On New Years Eve at my little house party all the drinking and talk was about small boutique gins and bourbons. And this was from some SERIOUS wine drinkers.One of whom recently sold a large part of his collection via Sothebys NYC. He brought St George Spirits Terroir and Herbivore. Sorry to see that wine go, but glad he put the money to some use. I never thought I would become a straight gin girl. But I am now.</p>
<p>We live in a golden age for drinking.</p>
<p>Wine making in the US was not taken seriously until CA wines started winning prizes in France. There’s a movie version of the first time that happened back in, I think, the 70’s. Back then, wine making here was dominated by Gallo and some other large producers. It then became hot but rapidly moved upmarket, with “big” CA wines selling for lots. Now the makers have matured and they’ve moved into all sorts of wine-making parts of the country, so we get a large number of reasonably well made wines at various price points.</p>
<p>I think hard ciders will become much bigger. There is a blossoming of crafted hard cider just as with gins, etc. They taste like apples or pears or whatever but drink like beer and come in regular or large bottles. Not like the old sparkling wine ciders you remember. Some are really well made. They’re sweet enough but not too sweet.</p>
<p>I think wine is more popular due to the expansion of where it’s grown. It’s been big here in California since I can remember, but now you see the expansion of vineyards to other regions. The proliferation of wineries drives prices down and makes wine more accessible. </p>
<p>What I especially love right now is the increasing popularity of craft beer, as well as international beer. I can now go to my local supermarket and buy any number of very good German beers. Back in the day international beer here just meant Corona.</p>
<p>A fascinating documentary I saw a couple of years ago reported that wine consumption in the US was heaviest on the coasts with hard liquor consumption greatest in fly-over territory. I don’t recall the specifics, but it may have had to do with nationalities of immigrants who settled various areas of the midwest vs. those who settled in urban areas of the east or west coasts. Beer was also discussed, but don’t recall the geographic/demographic details—too much wine? I’ll hunt around for the name of the program and will post if I find it.</p>