NEW ENGLAND LOVES TO SIP

ACCORDING to the Wine Institute, Americans drank 2.7 gallons of wine per person in 2O12, which was up from around 1.5 gallons in the 197Os.  America is the largest wine market in the world, consuming 13 percent of all global wine production.  You may wonder: who is drinking all the wine?  BusinessInsider.com took it upon themselves to find out and charted just how much wine each state is drinking.  With data from the Beverage Information Group they determined how much wine per person each state consumed in 2O13.  The leading state may be a surprise (mainly because it’s not even a state) – and it also may explain why things are working so slowly in Congress.  The District of Columbia took home the bacon (or the Cabernet), consuming 25.7 liters of wine per person every year or about 34 bottles a year.  New Hampshire came in second, consuming 19.6 liters of wine per person annually, and Vermont came in third, at 17.5.  Next came Massachusetts, New Jersey, Nevada (Vegas, baby!), Connecticut, and California.  Residents of West Virginia don’t drink much wine, on the other hand.  The state came in last place, with annual per person consumption of 2.4 liters.  Mississippi, Kansas and Utah don’t really like vino either.  Overall, wine is most popular in the Northeast, on the West coast and in Florida.