1. Wine is delicious
Which is just so annoying if you are trying not to drink it. There's a wine for everyone. For everyone's taste. A match for every meal; even wine for cheese and desserts. Making it even harder to avoid.
Basically, wine goes with everything. You can have a pear-like Prosecco at a summer garden party; a glass of Sauvignon on a Saturday night; a rich, fruity, Malbec on a chilly Sunday, with your roast dinner in front of an open fire; or an Amarone for a special occasion. And when you just don't know whether to go with a Red or a White, well there is always Rose! It's just evil genius.
2. Wine Calories
Why, oh why do there have to be so many calories in wine? It is the most depressing thing for someone who loves wine, who also needs to diet. (Ahem... me)
Calories in wine can be anything from 100 to 300 calories per glass depending on the wine, and the size of your glass. So let's say an average of about 200 calories for your usual glass of deliciousness. I mean who even drinks a small glass of wine anyway? What would be the point?
What I found interesting when checking these facts, was that there is actually postassium, calcium and iron in wine! (Only a very small percentage, but it is still there, according to caloriecount.com.) So I can forget banana, milk and spinach. Wine is beautifully providing for me in those areas!
It also has no saturated fat or cholesterol in it, and is very low in salt. Unfortunately the alcohol and sugar in wine aren't that good for you, so it rules out using those little fact gems to justify it.
As a health expert would say, (I look to my brothers, experts in fitness), they are "wasted calories". Essentially all the sugar in wine is going to go straight to your hips and tummy. Unless you are one of the really lucky people of this world.
DAMN YOU WINE, you suck.
3. Pricing
The way wine is priced, sucks. Now, here's where it can get a bit technical so I will keep this simple, and refer you to experts for the detail.
If you buy a bottle of wine for a fiver, you are getting a pretty low quality wine. The actual wine cost in that bottle is just 50p! Then add all the costs on top of that: bottling, distribution, retail margin, Duty and VAT (with Duty and VAT taking up 58% of the price) -you have a £5 bottle of wine.
If you buy an £8 bottle of wine, the actual wine cost is £2 and results in a much better wine. You can always find offers on £8 bottles to bring the price down, and it will be a much better drop than your 50p wine!
Here is a brilliant infographic from Gavin Quinny of the Baudoc Blog which shows it perfectly.
As you can imagine, if you carry on up the pricing scale, spending more per bottle, then more money is spent on the actual wine.
It still feels very unfair though. Especially for those of us in the UK.
Gavin is campaigning for UK duty on wine to be reduced as the UK currently pay 67% of all the wine duty in Europe. He has written a brilliant blog post on it here.
If you really love wine to the extreme, you could move to France where you can buy it for a fraction of the price, and even direct from the supplier.
You could indeed be paying a couple of quid for a lovely wine. But you'd have to move to France. That would suck. (Sorry France, I love you really).
4. Hangovers
I was once reliably informed by my wine loving Uncle (Hello Uncle Chris) that you only ever get a hangover from bad quality wine. There may be some people who beg to differ.
It is an excellent excuse to only drink excellent wine, but it would break the bank. You can understand, given the pricing breakdown above, that the 50p wine might be a bit of a gut rotter.
I think if you drink too much of any alcoholic beverage for too long, and don't eat enough, a hangover is inevitable. They key is to eat! Which then means a double-calorie-whammy. Wine and food calories. That sucks.
Gone are the days of saving up all your weight-watchers points by not eating anything all day, so you could go out drinking that night. You can only really get away with that in your twenties, when your resistance to hangovers is greater. Start knocking on the door of 40, and hangovers are significantly worse. Especially if you have kids. I discovered that this year, what with being a new 'older' mum!
5. There's nothing that can replace wine.
Non-alcoholic wine has never come close to tasting the same as its grown-up compadre. They just do not do the trick. It is a massive shame and a massive gap in the market. One day I dream of coming up with that solution. I also plan to invent my ©Sauvignon Squash ™, you heard it here first. The idea is MINE, people.
When I'm trying not to drink wine (which is usually because of a dress I need to fit in to), but I would still like a drink, I tend to go for a Gin and Slimline tonic, because I've kidded myself it's almost calorie free. (Almost)
Refreshing and delicious as a G&T can be, nothing, just nothing, can replace wine.
And that, my friends, truly sucks.
You can find more posts from Lucy at www.bottlefor2.com and on facebook
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