A huge thank you to everyone who took some time out from what, I’m sure, were some extremely hectic schedules to participate in my wine survey last month. The importance of a good survey can never be overestimated, I’m sure you will agree, and an opinion poll about wine, even less so. I had hoped to spend most of Citylife’s office-moving-budget on getting whoever so assiduously runs polls for the Daily Mail to conduct the survey, but they said no. However I did manage to procure a student from CMU to help me as part of his geography project, and I think you will find that some of the results are mildly diverting at best.
Although 93% of females who agreed to being pointlessly pigeonholed said that they only ever drank pinot grigio, 47% said if they were allowed to swap they might go for a chardonnay. On reflection, 67% changed their mind and said if a bottle of champagne were open, it would be rude not to. A sensible 38% said they didn’t care.
84% of all parents who had named their daughters Chardonnay regretted it, with 98% admitting to being surprised that the name was a variety of grape and that Footballers’ Wives was not a documentary. This was down considerably from the 0% of parents who had named their child after a grape in 1836, when records concerning that sort of thing began.
Thankfully, just over 62% (63%) of those who started the survey managed to complete it. A further 31% said they had intended to give it their full attention, but found something better to do. 3% admitted the mention of wine had been too much, so had gone off to open a bottle or two with some friends.
When asked about Old World wine regions, nearly all respondents (95%) were able to point at a country in Europe, or thereabouts. New World wine regions appear to have been a little trickier, but points were given for being able to identify any country not in Europe that might have a vine growing in it somewhere. The 1% who went for Antarctica scored half a point.
The subject of wine labels also threw up some equally inconsequential results, with 84% agreeing that a wine label generally made it easier to tell the difference between cabernet sauvignon and ribena before unscrewing the top. Of the 43% who admitted they usually went for the bottle with the prettiest label on it, 47% said they especially liked the labels with animals or flowers on them and couldn’t give a toss about the name of the chateaux or winemaker printed in italics.
When taking a lady friend for dinner at a fancy restaurant, two thirds (66.66%) of males came up with the almost-worth-mentioning opinion that the most important part of the evening was ordering the right wine in the correct fashion – 16% considered it more essential than actually remembering to invite said lady friend. An unsurprising 14% of males admitted to drinking as much wine as possible prior to aforementioned lady friend turning up.
Although choosing the right bottle in a restaurant was ‘stressful’ for 26.27% of the 66.66%, a staggering 98% admitted that what might come after dinner in a fancy restaurant with a lady friend was probably more stressful – but that a bottle, or six, of wine with dinner usually helped.
Although a cork being ‘the only way to properly seal a wine bottle’ was the opinion of 76% of those who somewhat misguidedly agreed to be polled, most (69%) of children over the age of three, but below the age of 13 and three quarters, preferred a screw top.
When asked about how much wine they drank, 75% replied ‘less than they should, but more than they could,’ while 46% believed that a glass of wine after work was preferable to a conversation with their partner, and just over half (53%) admitted they would like to enjoy a glass of something fruity at a trendy, young wine emporium in the Nimmanhaemin area, but just couldn’t fathom the new one way system. An understandable 94% said if there was the offer of a glass of wine and some sex, they would.
(Disclaimer: the phone poll consisted of as many random people I could get hold on a 100 baht top-up, but who did not have a 2 in their number, as it is broken on my mobile. I also used the calculator on that phone to work out the statistics.)