HOW SWEET IT IS/IS IT?

Watch out, Coke and Pepsi!

The average American drinks 53 gallons (208 litres) of soft drinks a year with Coke and Pepsi making up just about half that total, but only about two gallons (7.6 litres) of wine. Granted, for many of our US subscribers who are reading this item, the reverse of those stats would apply. But the numbers still say something about American tastes. Fifty years ago, Australian and New Zealand wine drinkers mostly drank sweet (fortified) wines. In the mid 1990s, a wealthy Chinese family from Taiwan, looking for import opportunities, were recommended to visit our TOP 1OO WINES Exhibitions in Brisbane. The English speaking daughter was an Harvard MBA graduate. Very sharp. About half way through the whites, with mouth puckered and with nose screwed up, she came to me and said, "Mr Mason, we are looking for something sweeter than those wines. Taiwanese wine drinkers would never buy those wines." It takes time but I suspect the learning curve for Americans and Chinese will be somewhat more sharply curved upwards than it was for Australasians.