More women become wine consumers
Marie Vasari Taking Stock - Herald.com - Monterey 24/4/2006

Forget the stereotypes: Wine is a gentleman's domain no longer.

Women, these days, are as likely as men to be wine consumers.

More than likely, in fact.

According to a 2005 Gallup poll, women make up 52 percent of the population but buy 55 percent of the wine in this country.

That's a number worth noting, as an emerging consumer base that's not likely to shrink anytime soon.

Take, as an example, Sofia.

I'm far more a fan of Sofia Coppola's movies than the wine that bears her name, single-serve pop-tops wrapped in frilly pink packaging.

But the very existence of the Niebaum-Coppola wine -- produced from North Monterey County grapes -- says as much about the buying habits of American wine drinkers as it does about Frances Ford Coppola's fondness for his filmmaker daughter.

Chances are, not too many men are buying Sofia, yet it's turning up in more and more stores every week.

Several weeks ago, awaiting an appointment in the lobby of Bernardus Lodge, I ran across Wine Adventure, a magazine geared to women. The publication describes itself as "the first magazine that merges food, travel, and culture through the universal connection of wine."

I was drawn into a Croatian wine adventure, a compelling read on the birthplace of zin. Intelligent without attitude, the San Diego-based glossy delivered information on wine boot camps and wine products, pairing advice and personality profiles.

Wild Women on Wine runs ads in wine industry publications to draw attention to its membership organization. The group, which celebrates the unique alchemy of women with wine, cheese and chocolate, started out as an annual girlfriends' getaway, but now serves as an online forum for wine news and events around the world, merchant involvement and product merchandising.

Online, women can chat about wine flights and friendship or what to pair with Stilton.

And recently, a new friend tipped me off to a local group of women who gather informally each month to dine and drink, with a focus on sharing their wine discoveries.

This year, Sonoma publisher Carneros Press will release "100 Women in Wine: Journeys and Inspiration in Wine and Life" by Gregory Walter, celebrating women in all aspects of the wine industry. Chances are, there's fodder for a few books.

I don't pretend to be a wine expert but have a keen interest as a consumer and business writer, as a former food and restaurant writer, and as the partner of a hobbyist home winemaker. Perhaps too painstakingly, I tend a pair of grapevines on my tiny patio, perhaps a silent symbolic planting of a future dream. The point is, I enjoy the vino culture as much as viniculture, and the only thing that matches the tricky magic of the wine-making process is the communal aspect of sharing wine with good friends.

Gender has nothing to do with that, but ignoring a gender based on perception at this point would, quite simply, be bad for business.