For well over 40 years, or at least during the entire time I've worked as a sommelier or full-time wine professional, the American wine industry has treated consumers like they were idiots.
I don't get it. There has never been anything in the leaves suggesting that consumers are idiots. They never have to be told, for instance, what the absolute latest in technology is all about. Most of them understand the most complex tech language; even if they don't, they figure it out very quickly. Hence, the way technology advances with such astounding speed—consumers are never left behind.
When it comes to matters of taste, consumers are even more ravenous. They never need to be told about the coolest music going down—they practically sniff out the latest sounds in the air. They always seem to know what the best books and movies are all about, or the latest foods and fashions to follow. They get it. Often even faster than the musicians, writers, filmmakers, chefs and fashion designers themselves.
Yet when it comes to wine, most of us in the wine industry—from producers to distributors, media, trade and restaurateurs—still treat consumers as if they are slow learners, who can barely understand more than four or five varietals at a time. When Jancis Robinson first came out with her pocket-sized Guide to Wine Grapes, she listed over 700 grape varieties commercially grown around the world. Why are there so many? It's called consumer demand; something that has been happening all around the world for hundreds of years.
The way most restaurants stack wine lists is a reflection of the wine industry's overall attitude towards consumers. A typical "award winning" wine list will have 100 Cabernet Sauvignons and 50 Chardonnays; and maybe, just two Zinfandels and one Chenin Blanc, but nothing "weird" like Graciano or Biancollela. Almost no cool, new producers; mostly the big commercial brands sold everywhere. Nothing from out-of-the-way appellations because... well, we assume our guests can't possibly understand or appreciate alternative grapes, unknown brands or unfamiliar appellations, no matter how amazing the wines may taste with our cuisines.
So we spoon-feed them, like babies, and chuckle at their quaint habit of "thinking dry and drinking sweet." But it's not the consumers who are dumb, it's us, the so-called "professionals." Too dumb to see what's obvious about consumers in general: That most of them are smart; in many ways, smarter than us.
We are also the lazier ones—too lazy to make an effort to give them what they deserve, which is as much variety of wines as the enormous variety of dishes prepared by many of our uber-talented chefs. Guests, as we all know, come in mainly for the food. They understand brand new dishes, and they can't get enough of them. Why not the same with wine? Why give them the same ol', same ol'?
Most recently, here in the mid-2020s, there has been something of a conservative backlash in the marketing wing of the wine industry, in response to flattening of consumption rates across the country⏤a phenomenon, in fact, happening all around the world, and relegated to volume rather than monetary sales (economic growth of the wine industry continues to increase by billion-digit figures each year).
Consumers, some of these marketing geniuses have been saying, have been trending towards fewer and fewer gallons or hectoliters in recent years because the wine industry traditionally talks over their heads. Producers want to highlight Brix and barrels, or farming practices and fermentation temperatures, when all consumers want to know is how "good" a wine makes them feel. In other words, we need to dumb things down even further in order to "turn the industry around."
Everything I've experienced over the past 50 years, a period of unprecedented growth of New World grape and wine production, tells me nothing could be further from the truth. Consumer interest⏤make that, passion⏤in wine is stronger than ever. Seemingly everyone and their uncle or aunt, cousin or niece, wants to be a sommelier or a wine scholar, a wine scribe or influencer, a winemaker or educator, to start a winery or invest in a vineyard. Americans, at least, are hungrier than ever for any kind of knowledge having to do with wine.
Insulting a consumer's intelligence by dumbing things down, or talking about wine as if it is just another commodity rather than a product of craftsmanship, Nature or artistry, was always a bad idea. At this point, it’s the biggest mistake you can make.
So that's my caveat here, particularly for restaurateurs. Simply, if you assume your guests are capable of appreciating only a few wines at a time, then that's what you get—guests with narrow tastes or, worse yet, who are utterly bored by your meager selection. But if you treat them like, well, average consumers—people with the capacity to learn and appreciate just about anything you throw at them—I guarantee you will get the predictable results. You sell a lot more wine.