If you’re puzzled about how to get more people to drink wine, this article by Fintan Kerr makes a lot of sense. Generally there are two options: (1) make wine more accessible, (2) and/or teach more people about the pleasures of wine. He thinks option (2) is the way to go:
Converting someone to drinking cheap wine instead of cheap beer is not, in my eyes, the goal. Having involved customers who buy better wine and are naturally curious, is, especially as they become passive ambassadors for those wines and the industry as a whole.
As I have argued in the past, selling people cheap supermarket wine is not going to get them deeply involved in wine. Most of those wines are not interesting, and when curious people discover that fact, they will move on to something more interesting. To encourage people to drink the good stuff you will have to get them interested in wines’ infinite variations.
To put it simply, the act of drinking wine isn´t complicated in the slightest but knowing what you´re drinking is. Unfortunately, this is really a big part of what makes wine special – it´s individuality and variety, so you can´t easily take one without the other. Many have tried to simplify this and failed; there´s simply no way to put all the relevant information into a neat box that anyone can pick up. If you want dedicated customers, they need to move beyond the first element of just drinking wine as an alcoholic drink and at least catch a glimpse of the rest.
So what form should that education take? He acknowledges the value of wine certification courses such as WSET for people with the money, skill set, and time to pursue them. But there are limits to that approach because too many people lack those resources:
However, most wine education isn´t a formal task and it’s a big ask to expect customers to invest time and money in an expensive course. In fact, the vast majority of wine education happens far more informally, through writing, documentaries, wine tastings and events. My own induction into the world of wine came through a tasting in a wine shop in Barcelona… had I never moved to that particular street, at that particular time, would I be working with wine today? I will never know.
This comment resonated with me. I got heavily into wine because some very nice people at my local wine bar piqued my curiosity and, through casual conversations and structured tastings, gave me the insight I needed to get started. The certifications came long after I was hooked. It’s that spark of curiosity that needs to be nurtured, the rest will take care of itself.
The wine industry has to figure out how to ignite that spark of curiosity which is upstream from the education. It’s really about having quality, personal interactions with people. Wine communicators have to display their passion, not their knowledge, give people reasons to care rather than facts that may not mean anything to them.
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 