The English have become wine producers as well as wine consumers. English wine is changing the landscape

>Shifting consumer preferences help. Sparkling wine, the bulk of English output, was once about celebrations and grand milestones. Today younger people pair it with more casual gatherings.

Oof, explains my situation. I dunno if this is a generational shift, but most of the social gatherings I go to nowadays has more wine and less beer.

On a related note, sparkling wine was hella underrated as a dinner party for quite some time. When I was a sushi chef, I was not the biggest fan of pairing sake with sushi, instead I preferred to push for wine and shochu. Dry prosecco was by far my favorite drink to pair with sushi. It has that nice crisp and a tiny bit of sweet that just made it heavenly.

Another aspect as well is that how people drink wine at dinners can change. In Hong Kong, I had a small stint selling wine and unlike Europe which prefers to pair wine with the protein, in Hong Kong I was taught to pair the wine with the sauce.

For example with shabu shabu, if you prefer ponzu, pair it with a white or sparkling and if they prefer sesame sauce, give them a light red.

Also in HK, many people, especially older people prefer red wine because of the supposed health benefits and the lucky color, but it often pairs poorly with Cantonese and Japanese food. So one thing I did was to really push rose which often went better with more delicate Cantonese flavors while having that nice red color.

But when it comes to wine pairings, I think the idea of the “best wine with food” is a bit overstated. Generally, most people will learn what kind of wine they love with their food over time and find a routine that makes them happy.