Statistics Canada recently published a survey of Canadians' alcohol-buying patterns for 2004-05 that shows wine is continuing to make gains over both beer and spirits.
Wine sales were up 6.5 per cent over the previous year -- about double the growth in beer sales and triple the rise in sales of spirits.
That increase pushed wine into second place (after beer) in sales, the first time wine has outsold spirits.
The longer-term picture confirms the robust state of the wine market in this country: between 1994-95 and 2004-05, beer sales fell slightly (from 53 per cent of all sales to 50 per cent), as did spirits sales (28 per cent to 24 per cent), while wine increased its share from 19 per cent to 25 per cent.
These results parallel trends in many other countries and they're good news for wine producers and merchants. Not necessarily for local wineries, though, because sales of imported wine rose more quickly than sales of Canadian wine.
We can only speculate about the reasons for the growing popularity of wine. Clearly, wine has become a lifestyle drink for many people. The widespread interest in courses, television shows, books, magazines and websites devoted to wine shows that a growing number of people are either interested in knowing more about wine or think they should have some basic wine knowledge.
And wine has also attained a position of cultural dominance within the range of beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Look at the way beers are routinely described, not to mention coffee, tea, mineral water and other drinks. They are all modelled to some extent on the way wine is described.
Overall, the StatsCan survey suggests alcohol consumers embrace variety. Few wine-consumers are brand-loyal, and the great majority like to try different producers and regions -- although I suspect many wine consumers are pretty loyal to one or two grape varieties and to particular styles.
Beer consumers tend to be more committed to one brand, but the StatsCan figures show a continuing trend toward imported beers and that might suggest a greater willingness to try different styles.
Imported beers accounted for 12 per cent of sales in 2004-05, compared to 3 per cent 10 years earlier. And while sales of Canadian beer were almost flat over that period, imports were effervescent at 15 per cent a year.
Interestingly, although Canadians like to sneer at American beer as lacking flavour and body, nearly a quarter of the beer imported to Canada comes from the U.S. (Maybe it's being consumed by expatriates.) The next biggest suppliers are Mexico and the Netherlands, each with about a fifth of the import market.
There is some other interesting information on wine in the survey. On a per capita basis, every Canadian over 15 spent $161.10 on wine in 2004-05. (For beer, the figure was $322.10 per person.) That doesn't buy an awful lot of wine, and it would be interesting to get a breakdown on what proportion of Canadians doesn't buy/drink alcohol at all.
A recent survey of baby boomers suggested that about two-fifths either don't drink alcohol or do so very rarely (one or two drinks a month).
Today, four imports available from the LCBO.