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ORIGINAL: ericindc

I know alot of "normies" who dont drink reds for a whole host of reasons, from getting headaches from red wine, to liking sweeter wines, or just an idiopathic preference for whites or rose.

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ORIGINAL: Ibetian

We drink mostly reds, but we have different red and white habits.

The average price of the still whites we drink is probably around $20. We cellar almost no whites. We like ‘em cold and crisp, cheap and cheerful. We often start the evening with a glass of white, then have red with dinner.

We enjoy champagne, and I have a bit of DP stashed away, but mostly we drink NV in the $35-50 range.

For reds, I spend a lot more per bottle and have accumulated a large cellar, mostly Bordeaux, but also Burgundy, Tuscany and CA cabs. The average age of the wine in my cellar is 14 years, so we usually drink properly aged wines with good food. I’m lucky.

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ORIGINAL: bularry

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ORIGINAL: Ibetian

We drink mostly reds, but we have different red and white habits.

The average price of the still whites we drink is probably around $20. We cellar almost no whites. We like ‘em cold and crisp, cheap and cheerful. We often start the evening with a glass of white, then have red with dinner.

We enjoy champagne, and I have a bit of DP stashed away, but mostly we drink NV in the $35-50 range.

For reds, I spend a lot more per bottle and have accumulated a large cellar, mostly Bordeaux, but also Burgundy, Tuscany and CA cabs. The average age of the wine in my cellar is 14 years, so we usually drink properly aged wines with good food. I’m lucky.

you don't find white wines of quality a match with meals? That's pretty interesting.

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ORIGINAL: fanglangzhe

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ORIGINAL: bularry

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ORIGINAL: Ibetian

We drink mostly reds, but we have different red and white habits.

The average price of the still whites we drink is probably around $20. We cellar almost no whites. We like ‘em cold and crisp, cheap and cheerful. We often start the evening with a glass of white, then have red with dinner.

We enjoy champagne, and I have a bit of DP stashed away, but mostly we drink NV in the $35-50 range.

For reds, I spend a lot more per bottle and have accumulated a large cellar, mostly Bordeaux, but also Burgundy, Tuscany and CA cabs. The average age of the wine in my cellar is 14 years, so we usually drink properly aged wines with good food. I’m lucky.

you don't find white wines of quality a match with meals? That's pretty interesting.

That is indeed curious. I find many foods to pair much better with whites/sparkling than reds. I find sparkling to be especially food friendly/flexible. Just IMO. YMMV.

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ORIGINAL: Ibetian
Well, that’s the way we roll. In half a century of drinking wine, I’ve tried many different things. But we’ve decided that we would rather drink red Burgundy than white with meals that others would choose differently. Indeed, YMMV. Though I agree that champagne is a fine dinner companion.

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ORIGINAL: khmark7
Growing and producing red wine is expensive (barrels etc), especially compared to white wines.

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ORIGINAL: Echinosum

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ORIGINAL: khmark7
Growing and producing red wine is expensive (barrels etc), especially compared to white wines.

Barrels are optional for both white and red wines, depending on the style. Quality red wines are more frequently fermented or aged in barrel than quality white wines. But I don't think cheaper wines of either colour, which are most of what's in the mass market, see barrels very much. Much more often they see giant tanks of cement or stainless steel.

A material factor in the cost of wine production, especially cheap wine, is if the wine needs to be aged - in whatever, tank, bottle, barrel - for longer before it is saleable. And that costs money because it ties up capital (finance cost) and it occupies space (rental cost) and it may occupy equipment (equipment depreciation cost). And to the extent that white wine can mostly be sold younger, I would say that was more relevant, at the cheaper end of the market, than specifically barrels.

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ORIGINAL: DoubleD1969
I’m probably not surprised white wines outsell reds. White wines have less alcohol. They’re better sipper on a warm day, which most people experience longer than a cold wintry month or two.

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ORIGINAL: penguinoid

I think I am probably not normal in this regard (or in many other regards, thinking about it ), but I tend to drink more reds than whites. According to CT, I drink about 66.8% red, 28.9% white, and 1.6% rosé.

I take white wines as seriously as red and enjoy them just as much, I just end up drinking them less frequently. This is partly because I need to remember to put white wines in the fridge a bit in advance, and I often forget . Red wines have the advantage that they can just be opened and poured.

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ORIGINAL: DoubleD1969
I’m probably not surprised white wines outsell reds. White wines have less alcohol. They’re better sipper on a warm day, which most people experience longer than a cold wintry month or two.

I guess this depends on where you live. In the UK, the converse would be true -- you experience colder wintery weather for longer than a warm summery month or two

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ORIGINAL: penguinoid
I just end up drinking them less frequently. This is partly because I need to remember to put white wines in the fridge a bit in advance, and I often forget

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ORIGINAL: Jenise

On another wine site I'm involved with, where most of us have known each other there for 20-30 years, a whole lot of us have noted that over the years we have drifted toward a higher percentage of white wine, around 50/50 where once upon a time it was more like 80% red. The change was never intentional, it's just that our eating styles have changed as we've grown older. We haven't just abandoned the old axioms about when to serve reds and whites, though that's also involved, it's more that we eat a lot less red meat than we used to and compensatorily more fish and vegetable dishes. Our meals are not just lighter and healthier, many are quite international (Asian, and Ottolenghi-ish) with complex spices that pair better with white and rose wines.

A change that's gone along with this evolution is that our price tolerance for white wines of significance (as compared to just quaffers) has gone way up. Or to put it another way, not only do we spend more per bottle for white wines, there are more great whites in the market place to spend our money on.

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ORIGINAL: Jenise

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ORIGINAL: penguinoid
I just end up drinking them less frequently. This is partly because I need to remember to put white wines in the fridge a bit in advance, and I often forget

Another thing that changed along with our consumption rate and average price-per-bottle of white wine is our attitude about perfect serving temps. We generally pull them straight out of the cellar, though yeah we keep some quaffers in the outside fridge during the summer. Roses, though, we do tend to prefer chilled.