White Zinfandel

I spent most of my weekend at the PGA golf tournament in near my place this weekend.  Apart from being amazed at how good pro golfers are, I was shocked that they only had one option when it came to wine at the concession stands, and that that options was White Zinfandel.  I stayed away from it, but I did see a bunch of people drinking the pink wine while I was on the course.  This got me to thinking why White Zinfandel would be the wine of choice for this event, and I came to the conclusion that it sells and that the event’s goal is to make money.

Regardless of how you feel about sweet White Zinfandels, buttery Chardonnays, fruit bomb Cabernets, or any other cookie cutter wine, wineries make wine in a particular style because that is what sells.  So, while I’d love to hate a particular winery because they produce predictable wine, I have to respect them as a business because they are trying to make money.  The quality of what is made doesn’t matter, it just comes down to will it sell, and for how much?

While I would have thought that something like Chardonnay or Cabernet would have sold better than White Zinfandel at the golf tournament, there are people at every turn imaginable that are out to forecast sales and figure out what wine will do well and why.  Restaurants follow trends to figure out how much people are spending on wine, and what they are buying when they figure out what to put on their wine lists.  Event specialists do the same thing, looking at everything from demographic of the target audience to their buying habits and preferences.  Grocery stores do the same thing.  So, next time you ask yourself why a particular wine is being served in a given situation, know that it was chosen for that exact situation by analysts, and it was determined that this particular wine varietal at the particular price would make as much money as possible for the event/winery/store, etc.  Wine is a business, and while it is easy to forget that sometimes, it is fun to think about to connect the dots and figure out how and why things are the way they are.

So, moral of the story, while I wasn’t thrilled with the tournament’s choice of wine, I do have to applaud them for apparently doing their homework and figuring out what would sell and sticking with it, even if that choice did raise the eyebrows of some people in the crowd.