Coffee or Wine: What's Your After Dinner Pleasure?
Written By: Matthew Apsokardu on Tue, Oct 14th 2008
A great dining experience is more than just a reflection of the main course. While steak or pasta is likely to have the biggest impact on your meal as a whole, there are secondary matters that, when added together, can be just as important. One of these rarely discussed but highly influential factors is the drink choice after a meal.
Sometimes, what we drink after a meal is a matter of habit. Like turning on a light switch, we barely even consider the action. But other times it's a far more conscious decision and speaks to where the evening is going. These decisions led me to ask over 100 people "what do you drink after a meal... and why?"
Before reading on, which drink do you think is more often selected after a meal: wine or coffee? How about neither?
Here are the statistics. You may be surprised.
You'll notice there were a few mavericks who shirked both coffee and wine for tea.
I think the most surprising result here is how close wine and coffee were in the standings. I went into this survey with no preconceived notions of how things would pan out, but I never thought it would be so close. To think, if one wine drinker had selected coffee instead, we would have seen a dead tie!
Among those surveyed were folks on food and beverage forums, along with friends of ClassicWines.com on Facebook and Twitter. These were all dining savvy individuals, and much as I had hoped, they delivered thoughtful responses when posed with my question.
So, what were the most frequent explanations for selecting one drink over the other?
According to many wine lovers, who squeaked out a close majority, the sweetness of dessert wines, ports, and other such styles act as a substitute for overly sweet desserts. "I generally prefer to have sweets at another time than dessert for dinner, so after a meal, I'd rather have fruit and cheese, and/or a glass of wine, or port, or madeira..." stated ChefJune on the Winelibrary forum.
Wine was also cited as a healthier choice for evening gatherings. "As much as I would love a frothy cappuccino with a cannoli after dinner, caffeine after 4 pm will hinder my night's sleep. I'll go with a porto, sauterne, cognac, Sambucca, or in Mexico an Xtabentun," explained Veggo on the Chowhound thread.
On the other hand, coffee folks found that their preferred beverage seemed a natural fit after extensive meals. "Coffee is ritualistic for me - the meal may sometimes make us full and the coffee wakes us up to then go back for a sweet beverage. Dessert >> Coffee >> Sweet Drink" said mps232 of the WineLibrary forum. That thought seemed to permeate amongst coffee drinkers as the richer complexities of coffee offset the high sugars found in many desserts.
There was also a heavy leaning toward higher quality coffees and espressos. Many coffee drinkers stated that their choice was dependent on establishment, explaining that the coffee selection and reputation of a restaurant would affect the likelihood of their ordering it. "I only order [coffee] where I've had it before and it has been good, or I'll try it in a new place, and if it's bad (which I can usually tell before even tasting it), I won't order it the next time," stated MMRuth of Chowhound.
As you might suspect, there were few harshly polarized answers among those surveyed. More often than not, people expressed an affinity for both wine and coffee, depending on the time of night and the varieties available at home and when dining out. This cross-over helps explain the close survey results.
It seems as if coffee and wine have always shared a symbiotic relationship, one picking up where the other left off. Indeed, companies like AromaPromotions.com have based entire businesses off of the likelihood of wine lovers drinking coffee, and coffee lovers drinking wine. To hear more about this classic connection, check out the video posted below:
