Wine Consumers

In order to start piecing the greater ethical picture together, it's important to acknowledge the other side of the supply and demand chart. For vineyards to make money, they have to sell. An attempt at wandering into the forest of the consumer's psyche may allow us to get birds eye view of the wine business as a whole. Interestingly, it seems that those who consume wine from these vineyards are, in general, more detached from the normative situation as a whole. This is because they are not as attuned to the complete set of ends and means as the producers are. Even though, as discussed in the Industrial Eyes section, producers operate in varied degrees of astuteness towards the whole of the situation, consumers seem to be much more detached. Many wine consumers will have no idea where their wine comes from, and if they know a general region, it is rare that they know the specific vineyard. In Sonoma there is a major industry of wine tasting and touring, yet most of the time consumers won't know how the vineyard is maintained or the history of its creation and political implications. To make matters worse, most of the people operating in the consumer sphere consider different ends. These ends deal with more sociological avenues than environmental ones. That is, they see wine as a means in itself for social purposes. Consuming wine is a cultural phenomenon that has major sociopolitical presumptions. In other words, it isn't really cool to talk about the ecological impacts of wine, instead, it's much more acceptable to speak on the taste or esoteric meaning.