Stang

The "men drinking" thread got me thinking about something. Why does wine seem to be the drink of choice for the women here? I know back when I drank former GFs and other women I was around drank beer with me. Just curious.

Calicofish

When I first started drinking, it was beer. Everyone drank beer (this was back in the late 70s. I drank mostly beer through the 80s and it was not until the 90s that I switched from beer to wine. It seemed that many people started drinking wine in the 90s (not just women). More and more wines came on the market and affordable good wines were more available.

Now, wine is everywhere. You hear "wine o'clock". Facebook is covered with posts about wine. Mommies looking forward to their wine. Wine with girlfriends. Wine tours. etc. I see post after post from my girlfriends saying how they could live without (fill in blank), but not wine followed with a bunch of "likes" and comments about agreeing.

For me - I could not care less about beer. I drank beer as a young woman but moved to wine. Copious amounts of wine. probably because it didn't fill me up like beer. I couldn't drink a lot of beer, but I sure could drink a lot of wine. And it just felt more sophisticated than slugging back beer. And I liked the taste and smell of wine.

That's why I drank wine.

CF

Venecia

My own explanation is fairly succinct: denial and stupidity.

For a long time, I somehow was able to live in a la-la world in which drinking wine meant I couldn't possibly have a problem. Throughout my entire life, after all, I've barely ever consumed "hard" liquor.

The stupidity part? In some respects, I preferred beer but the bloated feeling it gave me was icky, though it continued to be my second choice. My last drink, come to think of it, was beer. With wine, I had myself convinced that I was taking in fewer calories, which was technically true at one point but irrelevant when the volume and frequency increased to the point both did.

Aside from an occasional Diet Coke or ginger beer (NA), water is my drink of choice now. And that's just fine.

courage2

I was a hard liquor drinker by preference from when I was a kid tho I'd drink whatever was at hand. Plenty of men I know have wine as their drink of choice. Try thinking of it in terms of social strata or culture, not gender.

You knew when you started it this thread would be a pisser, right?

advbike

I dated many women who enjoyed wine with dinner out, as did I. It just seemed more traditional, upscale, and romantic than drinking beer, at least for dinner.

In the Pacific Northwest microbrews are also very popular, but in a more casual way. Wine is still the preferred drink among middle age and older drinkers.

Tommyh

the girls I hung around with drank beer and liquor

least

I was a wino. The wine I started drinking was called: Mommy's Time Out and the label was a little table and chair with a wine bottle and glass on the table. It was time out, indeed. Time "out of it".

Wine seemed to be socially acceptable. It was "romantic". A couple sharing a bottle of wine. All a façade.

Soberpotamus

I drank merlot, cabernet, and pinot noir. Later on, I switched to chardonnay and white wines. And that was mostly vanity; it didn't stain my teeth like the red.

Beer or liquor, sure, I'd take it if it was offered or the only thing available.

Wine was preferred. Never sweet wines. They made me sick.

Soberpotamus

This was part of my alcoholic rationale. I somehow reasoned that wine was more natural, organic, romantic, and likely the choice of many writers.

Silly, yes. I have no idea where this came from, but this is how I felt about it for a long time.

Tommyh

I drank boones farm,t j swan,md 20 20, ripple and bali hi years ago.They all made me sick.2 of my best women AA friends was wine drinkers and boy,did they put it away


maybe wine appealed to the "romantic" side of the ladies?

Venecia

Well, I can only speak to my own experience. I think that if there are any scientifically valid studies of women and alcohol, and I assume there are, you'd find that there is the same variety of liquids consumed. And the same outcome: alcoholism.

Calico makes a good observation, though. I think there's a societal notion that women are likelier to be wine drinkers and I suspect that's behind all the "stuff" out there reinforced by social media. If my Facebook feed is any indication, with all the "wine-o-clock" and "Mommy needs wine" posts, it's a stereotype that has taken root.

tammy711

I started drinking wine in 1996 - switched from beer and gin. My career began taking off and wine was just what everyone seemed to drink at business dinners (men and women).

At first I was a student of wine, loved learning about it. I would drink only the finest, to the point of being a bit snobbish. "Oh, don't touch that year from the central coast....yadda yadda yadda".

By 2010, I was buying cheap, boxed chardonnay and pouring it into diet Mountain Dew bottles so I could drink at work.

Oh those were the days. Not.

fini

in my early years in the culture around me, the message was: beer drinking is low-class, for coarse men. sophisticated men drink cognac, whiskey...blahblah.
women will have wine.
beer-drinking women were suspect. must be sluts.

such various stigma attached to different substances and who uses them.

i started with beer and later switched to wine in an attempt to switch from a "problem" to a "sophisticated" drinker.

Thumpalumpacus

I was always a beer drinker, a glass of wine on a dinner date, but otherwise it was beer.

The upscale imagery associated with wine -- the "Chardonnay Culture" that took off about 15 years ago, y'know? -- I think that makes it feel "safer" and more sophisticated. The same thing is happening with the microbrew beer culture too, I think.

Bunny211

I dunno...but wine was my drink of choice. 16-18 glasses of it a day at the end

Jsbodhi

Me exactly! Down to the teeth staining part.
I hated sweet wine as well.

I was always a wino, didn't like beer.

Jsbodhi

Oh wow!! So glad you're ok.
Having a glass of wine seems so innocuous.
Xoxo

Jsbodhi

All really good points here- all of the reasons I drank wine.

FormerWineGirl

I was drawn to wine from the word go. I also drank gin at one point, then vodka, but wine was always my go-to. While wine does have an air of class, when I drank it on horse back, or in a canoe on the river (both many, many times and obviously not out of stemware), it zapped the "class" right out of it!

advbike

Towards the end of my drinking days, I became very picky, sometimes not finishing a $7 glass of wine as I didn't like the taste. Having to order something else. It was hard to find one that I liked. The same with the microbrews. In retrospect, my system was probably starting to reject alcohol.