OTTAWA — Canadians’ love affair with beer may be well documented, but according to numbers released by Statistics Canada recently, Canucks are now starting to enjoy drinking red wine more than beer.
It turns out the share of beer declined from 53 per cent in 1993 to 46 per cent in 2009. During that same time wine sales jumped from 18 per cent of the market to 29 per cent.
Wine is becoming increasingly popular. In fact, dollar sales of red and rose more than doubled (+161 per cent) between 2000 and 2009, while white wine sales climbed by 50 per cent. Domestic wines are clearly enjoying the benefits of that increase — 24 per cent of all reds and roses sold in Canada were domestic, compared with 39 per cent of whites.When it comes to beer, however, interest in domestic product doesn’t seem to carry the same weight. In the last decade, Statistics Canada reports that imported beer has more than doubled its market share, from six per cent in 1999, to 13 per cent in 2009.
