Talk-A-Vino

It feels strange to admit that our invisible enemy still holding most of the world hostage. When all of the lockdowns started in Europe at the beginning of March, I was still holding on to our airline tickets and hotel reservations for the long-anticipated, lovingly-planned family trip to Italy at the beginning of July, thinking (not hoping!) that the world will get back to normal in the mere 4 months. The depth of my shortsightedness might be staggering, but let’s leave that discussion for another time.

The House of Townend is one of the oldest wine stores in the UK, tracing its history since 1906. As the wine sellers, the folks at the House of Townend know very well what is hot and what is not during the pandemic, in the UK and in Europe overall. Their recent press release from about a month ago offers the following tidbit:

“In the 2019 March-June period, the most popular drinks sold by the wine merchant were Prosecco and white wines. The spring period normally brings a taste for fizzy, lighter wines. This was also reflected in 2018.

In the same period in 2020, lockdown caused a considerable shift in drinking habits. House of Townend’s top 10 wines included 6 red wines – the top products being Pinot Noir and Malbec.  Malbec, in particular, has been popular in both Google Search history and House of Townend’s sales data, rising over 2570% in unique sale purchases in the lockdown period (23rd March-July 5th 2020) in comparison to the same time last year. ”

Two thousand five hundred seventy percent increase in sales of Malbec during the lockdown – how about that? I wonder if this phenomenon has an explanation (specifically such an increased interest to Malbec) – for sure I can’t offer you one.

As controlling spending during lockdown is also essential, House of Townend came up with interesting infographics, showing how much wine £10 can buy:

As you can see, the same £10 would allow you to drink in Portugal twice as much red wine as in Sweden.

I saw a fun poster somewhere on social media, saying that “wine is the glue which holds this sh!tshow together” – that might well be the case?

Cheers, my friends!