What is a fad wine?
A fad wine can be anything from orange wine to sparkling wine, but the truth is, why does wine come in fads anyway?
Sure, White Zinfandel was a fad, Franzia was a fad, the new boxed wine revolution is a fad… but when is it inappropriate to call something a “fad”?
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I pose this question because I have recently been enlightened that a country’s wine near and dear to my heart is “fad wine.” This informant is decidedly someone who feels she is more important than the rest of the wine world does, but nonetheless, her opinions are read by thousands of readers, if not more, and stating such an outright thing will surely have effects.
Likening it to fashion, I understand that the fall color is ox blood and that black is the classic… so is it that Bordeaux and Chianti are the classics? Nope. Those are also endanger of fad-labeling… saying they’re for your “parents” and “too complicated” to understand.
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It’s funny though – how does food and beverage come into fashion? Wine is growing in popularity in general, but it isn’t that it was ever “out of fashion.” I suppose knowing something about wine is now fashionable. Or not. You tell me.
Still my mind remains boggled by the fact one can determine an entire country, region, variety, whatever… a fad.
More mind boggling is that if wine knowledge is hip and knowing where good wine comes from is hip, then wouldn’t it be natural to know the up-and-coming places from which wine derives? Does that then mean they are just hip?
I think the larger issue here is that the old world is still very much meeting the new. Not just in the wine regions themselves, but also in the wine drinkers. This nay sayer of a “newly recognized, but old world” region has been around for many decades… many decades of which the wine business has changed dramatically.
I would like to make it known that, in my humble opinion, wine is not just a fad. It is ever evolving and ever growing and yes, fads will come… but grapes, classic styles of wine, countries and, for the most part, regions, are not qualified for the category of, “fad.”
