Wine News : Sunday Lifestyle Article - Toast of the heartland

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A well-written article in today's Sunday Lifestyle section of the newspapers by Huang Lijie. I am impressed by the number of people they have interviewed for the article and detailed description of some of the wine drinkers. I am especially impressed by the gentleman who has 500 bottles in his 5-room HDB flat. Personally, the key few reasons for the bludgeoning numbers of Singapore wine drinkers (heartlanders or cosmopolitans) in order of influcence are :-
(1) Increased accessibility and opportunities to try
- With many supermarkets, restaurants, food outlets, wine merchants and even petrol kiosks selling wine, consumers have more points of access and choices. It is a common affair to pick up a bottle together with the weekly shopping or dine out.
- Wedding dinners now serve mainly red or white wine with the beer as the alcoholic beverages, even people who had never drank wine before would try it during the dinner.

(2) More affordable and fatter wallets
- Wine is still a relatively expensive beverage for the masses compared to beers. However, the convergence between the lower pricing of entry-level wines and the healthy economic status of Singaporean households has made wine affordable to many.
- Moreover, taxes for wines in Singapore are competitive compared to other SEA countries.

(3) Socially acceptable alcoholic beverage of choice
- As more and more people switch from hard liquor to wine, the peer pressure to switch intensifies.
- The traditional mindset of wine being a stuck-up drink has dissipated with globalization and widely-traveled Singaporeans to wine quaffing countries such as Australia, USA, EU countries.
- The healthier perception of wine towards lowering cholesterol and a healthy heart.

The increased education, wine workshops and media reports on wine all do contribute to the growing trend of wine drinking in Singapore. The mission of this wine blog is also to help further perpetuate the wine culture here. However, in my opinion these are complementary compared to the overwhelming drivers above.