squandering my potential

The online magazine Slate recently posted an article on a subject near and dear to my heart .

Beer.

It seems that:

. . . wine consumption in this country has nearly doubled in the last decade, while beer sales have been pretty much stagnant, growing less than 1 percent since 2000. Even more galling, in 2005 a Gallup poll revealed that, for the first time ever, Americans preferred wine to beer.

From this, the author, Field Maloney, deduces:

Of course, the rise of the American fine-wine industry has spurred the broader acceptance of wine here. But who'd have guessed wine would join beer at the football game? Watching last winter's Giants-Eagles NFL playoff, I saw an ad for a cell-phone plan featuring a graying, rugged-looking man strolling through his vineyard and examining dusty bottles of older vintages in his cellar. Winning over football fans with wine! It was as if the "But of course!" Grey Poupon man of the '80s TV ads had become an unironic icon for the WWE. Somehow, wine had become manly.

Not so fast, my pantywaisted Slate magazine friends. Let me see if I have this straight. The author, Field Maloney, views what was undoubtedly some stupid wine advertisement during a football game, and then, combined with evidence of wine's increasing popularity, somehow extrapolates that wine has become a manly drink?

Sorry, but no.

There is nothing "manly" about drinking wine. Nothing. I don't have the figures, but I'm guessing the ratio of beer-to-wine sales at sporting events, concerts, or wherever else men gather in large numbers (like Nascar and strip clubs), is grossly in beer's favor. I'm willing to bet this isn't even close.

Real men drink beer. Wine is permitted during special meals, anniversaries, celebrations, and holidays. But it is not the standard alcoholic beverage of choice. Walk into a sports bar, or any bar for that matter, and order a chardonnay or a merlot. Its the easiest way I know to pronounce that you are, in fact, a effeminate and pretentious asshole.

Wine consumption among American males could very well be rising, and it could be doing so at a considerable rate. I do not care. Any increase in American male wine consumption is because, thanks to feminism and nanny-state liberalism, men are becoming pussies, and are becoming so at an alarming rate.

Wine is not "manly." Never has been, never will be.

The majority of men may one day prefer wine to beer. All this will mean is that this majority of men are not really "men" at all.