In the spirit of our binge drinking class project, I decided to conduct an experiment on the effects of wine. Not having consumed wine other than in church and there wasn’t exactly heavy drinking occurring there (the stereotype of Catholics being alcoholics apparently didn’t apply at mass), I wanted to branch out and relive the learning experiences associated with drinking a foreign alcohol. Before you make any hasty judgments, the point of the experiment was not to binge drink but rather to revert back to the days of not knowing my limits. My experiment about learning my limits with wine morphed into a dizzying shopping trip that spurred my questioning of wine advertising.
I began my shopping at Harris Teeter, a reputable grocery store with a surprising large selection of wines. My roommate and I walked through each aisle at least twice searching for the perfect wine for my test. Since neither my roommate nor I were wine aficionados, many factors severely slowed our progress. Neither of us had ever purchased wine, consumed wine regularly, or had any information about wine. Our 5 minute shopping detour turned into a 25 minute session filled with picking up and replacing bottles, reading labels, asking workers, calling family members, and exhausting nearly every other outlet of information available to us. For once I found myself wishing for a commercial to pop into my head urging me in a direction.
At that moment I felt as if I had been transplanted into an age before television, radio, and internet advertisements existed where a product’s success was based purely on its past performance spread by word of mouth instead of high priced commercials. I honestly could not recall a single advertisement for wine. Beer advertisements flood every possible media outlet and constantly invade my television. Televised sporting events remain entrenched with beer advertisements. Yet not one wine advertisement has reached my 50” television screen trying to gain my loyalty. North Carolina is considered a “wine country” isn’t it? If that is true then where is the advertising, where is the invasion of my television, radio, internet, and print? I believe this is because wine maintains an air of sophistication, not stooping to the levels of beer producers flaunting half naked girls around their products. Napa Valley, wineries, good years, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, these concepts mean nothing to the average non-wine drinking person. Only the wine connoisseurs link these words together to find meaning. This lingo terrified me as I approached the aisles and looked imploringly for guidance.
After gathering all the information offered from outside sources, I still stood facing 4 aisles 12 feet long with 5 shelves each jammed with wines - no 2 seeming the same. Armed with information I finally selected a wine that received a gold medal in taste at an international fair. I knew this thanks to a tiny 3 inch gold colored shelf advertisement. My shopping decision heavily depended on my brother’s input, but ultimately culminated in choosing a wine heralded by wine connoisseurs across the globe in the form of a tiny shelf sticker. I am embarrassed to admit that after 20 minutes of wine searching I purchased a bottle without any knowledge of its age, type, or region of birth. I simply caved in and trusted in a little shelf sticker. Luckily, that tiny sticker provided me with a delicious wine and I repeatedly return to wine shopping completely committed in trusting that beautiful gold shelf label.
Written by Shane Popham. Shane is a senior BEM major, who has found an affinity for wine – Sauvignon blanc, Pinot grigio, and Chardonnay, just to name a few.
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