was good with at school. I always envied the guys at school who could get
the girls, when I was the geek who was good at Math. Life didn’t seem
fair, and I have to say that it still doesn’t sometimes, but c’est-la-vie.
Numbers though; numbers I can handle, so I started looking at some
wine related numbers, mainly with a view to finding some aspect of wine
production (or consumption) where I could know more than Shane. It’s
difficult, but I think I’ve found my niche.
Allow me to offer an example; How many of you can quote the total world
production of wine? I’ll make it easier, round it up to the nearest
1,000,000,000 gallons. Still no idea? Well, it’s something like
7,000,000,000 (that’s 7 Billion for those who don’t have time to count all
the zeros). Sounds like a huge amount, but can you actually picture how
much that is? I can. I can tell you that it is just under 5.5 bottles for every
man, woman and child on the planet, every year. Lets be grateful to all
the children and non-drinkers in the world. I go through that amount in,
ooh, lets just say slightly less than a whole year.
Still need some help understanding what 7 Billion gallons looks like?
Simple. It’s about 35 Billion bottles, but just for you, I’ll give you a
mental picture of just how much that is. Picture Lake Lewisville….. it’s
pretty big (Oh, speaking of Lake Lewisville, here’s a riddle for you…..
When can you see a full moon in the middle of the day? Answers on a
postcard please….. send them to Leslie, who will be more than happy to
demonstrate this little known branch of Ass-tronomy).
I hope by now you all have a picture of Lake Lewisville in your head (I
don’t, but that’s Leslie’s fault). Imagine emptying the lake completely
and attempting to fill it with one year’s world production of wine. How far
would you get? Full? Half full? More than enough possibly? Nope. It
would take you 41 years to fill it, after which time the rate of alcohol
related deaths on the lake might be even higher than it is now.
If you were to empty all 7 Billion gallons into an already full Lake
Lewisville, you would only increase the level by 8 inches (and the
resulting mixture, if drinkable, would be almost as watered down as the
beer in Mexico, about 0.26%)
Or, how about this…. Picture your 7 billion gallons flowing through Dallas
in the Trinity River. How long would you have to stand and watch to see
it all go past? Allowing for a little rounding error here and there, it works
out at ten hours. Of those ten hours you would spend 2 hours watching
Italian wine, just a fraction less watching French wine, 46 minutes
watching American wine, and a staggering (don’t blink or you’ll miss it)
1.6 seconds watching the entire wine production of England fly past.
England, whose wine I have mentioned once or twice in the past, comes in
Sixtieth on the list of world wine producing nations. Fourteen places
above England, and curiously producing fourteen times as much wine, is
that Giant of the wine world………… Turkmenistan! (Go look it up on a
map…… for those of you who went to an American school, that’s one of
those pretty picture books that show all the Other places in the world).
Here’s one last number relating to the world wine production. If someone
could persuade good ‘ole Dubbya to invade all wine producing nations
and send the entire world production back to his home state, there’d be
just over 4 bottles per day, every day, for every man, woman and child.
That’s a little less than Brad drank on New Year’s Eve, but I don’t think
he could have done it again the next day.
Well, so much for wine production, but where does it all go? Hands up all
those who think Americans drink too much. Put you hands down again.
You people know nothing. When it comes to serious drinking America
ranks a pitiful thirty-sixth, with a mere 1.95 gallons per capita per year
(even if you take out everyone under 20 or over 80, it still works out at
less than 15 bottles each per year). Much more impressive is the small
but perfectly formed nation of Luxembourg (get your picture book out
again, it’s that little dot nestled in the corner between Germany, France
and Belgium. If you can’t find Germany, France and Belgium I have one
thing to say……… “Don’t worry Honey, it’s not your fault you’re
Blonde”).
Luxembourg, as you may have guessed already, ranks number one for
worldwide wine consumption. These people down a hugely impressive
23.3 gallons each annually. Wow. Lets have a big round of applause for
anyone still standing in Luxembourg. Assuming that every single person
between 20 and 80 drinks the same amount, that’s over ten cases a year
EACH. If just two thirds of them drink, they would each have to down
half a bottle everyday, just to keep up. Be thankful you don’t live in
Turkmenistan though. Despite their relatively healthy rate of wine
production, your average Turkmenistanite (or Turkmenistany, who
knows?) goes thirteen months between bottles of wine.
The British, known more for their beer consumption than their taste for
the finer things in life, manage a somewhat respectable 2 bottles per
month, about double the U.S.
Well, I’ve rambled on quite long enough. I could tell you all about rates
of change of wine consumption, (Wine consumption is increasing faster in
the U.S. than almost anywhere else), but I can tell you’re bored already,
so I’ll leave you with this final snippet of information: The USA has just
under 900,000 acres of vineyards, which (and you’ll have to trust me on
this) works out to an area about twelve feet by twelve feet for every
person. Since they plant vines about six feet apart, in rows that are also
about six feet apart, there are precisely 4 vines in this country with your
name on them. I’m off to California to look for mine. I’ll let you know
what I find.
Cheers
Note
For those of you interested in my research, who maybe expected to see
references strewn throughout the editorial quoting source information,
Sorry. I have endeavored to be vague and inaccurate whenever possible
to ensure that nobody can sue me for use of their data. Happy drinking.
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