States Drinking the Most Wine

Who is pounding down the most wine? Per government statistics these states drink the most in total volume and per capita. Congratulations, I think.

Total wine consumption by volume will gravitate towards the biggest states, of course. Here are the top five with their population rank in parentheses. You can see that the top five in consumption closely mirror the top five in population.

1. California (1) drinks more than twice as much as #2.
2. Florida (3)
3. New York (4)
4. Texas (2)
5. Illinois (5) 

South Dakota (46) and Wyoming (50) are tied for last in consumption by volume.

Top states (includes DC) in per-capita wine consumption will have some surprises. Here are the top ten.

1. Idaho
2. Washington, DC
3. New Hampshire
4. Vermont
5. Delaware
6. Massachusetts
7. California
8. Connecticut
9. Nevada
10. Hawaii

The bottom five in per-capita wine consumption are Oklahoma, Utah, Mississippi, Kansas, and West Virginia. Idahoans drinks eleven times more wine than West Virginians. Not surprisingly, Idaho has a booming winery business. There are 60 wineries making 160,000 cases of wine annually. While the state of Idaho harvests 130,000 tons of grapes each year California harvests over 4 million tons.

The most alcohol per-capita? The top five are New Hampshire, Delaware, Nevada, North Dakota, Montana. 

Some of these per-capita number are skewed. Some states have strict alcohol laws and folks from border states will come across to save money and/or get a better selection. This increases sales, but the consumption is in another state. This happens in New Hampshire and Delaware with people from MA buying in NH and PA buying from DE. Another thing affecting numbers would be tourism in Nevada and Hawaii because who doesn't drink a bit when on vacation.