Do Europeans (Nordic countries in particular) take 90% of their meals with a glass of wine?

38 comments

1. Not at breakfast or lunch, but wine at dinner is pretty normal in well-to-do families, perhaps what is usually referred to as the so-called “upper middle-class.” It is also usually people and families from this layer of society, which internationally successful films and series portray, with few exceptions.

   If movies and series portraying the everyday life of working-class Danes were more common, and gained international popularity, you’d see less wine in the everyday, with it being more reserved for special occasions.

2. Maybe at restaurants, since we don’t go that often or at special occasions like birthdays or Christmas. On very rare occasions maybe at dinner, like once or twice a year. Normally we don’t drink that often in my family though, I don’t drink alcohol at all.

3. Definitely no. Alcohol is not part of everyday meal, and I would say that beer is more popular with food than wine. Even though wine might be becoming about as popular alcoholic drink option with food

4. Not every day, maybe together with dinner Friday and in the weekend, but if it is a daily occurrence some people here would consider that bordering alcoholism (not saying it’s necessarily true).

   Edit: And it’s not normal in upper middle class families either. Being fit and healthy is prestigious, and having a glass of wine every day doesn’t fit that lifestyle.

5. >Breakfast, lunch and dinner are taken with a glass of wine. So is this the case IRL?

   Definitely not. One thing that typically separates Northern Europe from Southern Europe is the habit of enjoying a glass of wine to the meal. That is not an everyday thing in the Nordic countries at all, and something we rather think of as stereotypically French etc.

   It is something we do at special occasions though, so when celebrating something, having a party/get-together with friends, going out to a restaurant etc. The typical thing in Norway is having breakfast and dinner at home with the family (dinner is usually around 16-17 o’clock, with many activities and errands to do afterwards, so no occasion for drinking) and a quick lunch in the break room at work, so going to restaurants and having get-togethers with friends is a part of the “special occasions” where we tend to bring out the alcohol.

6. Outside of restaurants, never in 30+ years. And even in restaurants, it’s usually when there’s some occasion, and not random restaurant visits.

7. Wine is actually much more common in southern Europe than in Nordic countries where beer is definitely more popular

8. I think it depends on the people.

   In my family and, let’s be honest, class it’s not normal.

   I know many richer people with more prestigious jobs like attorneys, professors, CEOs and MDs that drink wine with many meals so I guess it happens.

   Of course everything is exaggerated in movies and tv-shows though

9. It’s extremely rare in Spain. Over here people prefer beer over wine.

10. No. Friday and Saturday maybe for danner especially if you have guests, but during the week we drink water

11. In Italy yes. At least for dinner (and lunch on the weekend)

12. I never drink alcohol to meals if its not a special occasion. At a restaurant, or dinner with friends and such it might happend, but during an average week I don’t drink alcohol at all.

13. Depends but absolutely not breakfast, lunch when eating out during the weekend, dinner maybe a couple times a month.

    Growing up in my family (lower middle class) they never drank wine. In my girlfriends family (upper middle class/upper class) where evryone is highly educated and earn a good income they drink it almost daily before and during dinner.

14. France : for the generation of my parents (50-60yo and more) i would say it’s quite common, and even consider as good for health to drink a bit of red wine during diner, and some do it at lunch too. But younger generations have been more exposed to the prevention campaigns against alcohol.

    Breakfast i don’t even understand who would do that and i’ve never heard of it

15. I do but most people don’t. Seems like a more southern European thing IMO.

16. Nordic countries are probably among the *least* likely countries in Europe to have wine with meals. If they wanted to show a realistic Nordic mealtime drink in those films, they could use milk.

17. I think it’s a bit of a tv/film trope tbh.
    The average meal in Northern Europe doesn’t tend to be consumed with wine – sometimes restaurant meals etc might be more likely to be.

    Wine is definitely easily and widely available, but it’s just not something that you’d have with every meal – that’s really more associated with countries and regions with big wine production history like France, Spain, Italy, Greece and most of the warmer parts of Europe.

    In most of the Nordic countries and also here in Ireland alcohol is also very heavily taxed. You’re not going to just pick up some ‘Vin de table’ for a couple of Euro. You won’t get much change of €20.00 for anything vaguely decent here and it’s not unusual to pay €7.00 or 8.00 a glass in a restaurant for fairly mediocre wine. So it tends to be more likely to be consumed with a meal that has some kind of night out or of some kind of more significance than your average evening meal.

    That being said there’s a growing problem in Northern Europe with people downing a bottle of wine over dinner or watching TV (way more volume than you’d typically consume in southern Europe) and thinking they’re just being sophisticated (compared to having an equivalent amount of alcohol in beers) when they’ve actually a serious alcohol issue. It’s become a significant issue, as it’s more hidden than getting legless in a pub/bar.

18. For real? We’re always drunk, hate the Danes invading us

19. Having wine with dinner is pretty normal, but it’s still not something most people would do every day. I only have a glass of wine with my dinner once a month or so.

20. I’ve been watching a lot of American movies lately and I was wondering if you really never turn off the lights when you leave the house?

21. Not really and I am from wine making part of country lol.

    It’s usually tap/mineral/sparkling water or soda(kofola) or beer.

22. North European countries probably drink wine for the fewest amount of meals. I barely see people in Norway drink wine with lunch except for national days or celebrations

23. Not even close. That was once the culture in France and other countries (but even there alvohol consumption has gone down, just as it has here) but wine isn’t something we have been able to produce in Sweden (until recently in the Southern tip of Sweden if you grow your grapes in a greenhouse, because climate is warmer now) so we don’t have that wine culture. Historically we drank spirits such as snaps. It was normal to have a snaps with your dinner or even lunch. In the 70s politicians thought it was bad that we drank so much snaps and thought it would be better if we were more moderate and drank wine instead, and that’s how the cultural shift started. Now we drink more wine in Sweden than we used to, but it’s nowhere close to the amounts you are describing.

    I’d say it’s typical to have wine with your dinner twice per week. At weekends one may have it for lunch as well if one is meeting up with friends for instance. It’s common to drink wine at parties. For breakfast, almost never. If it’s a celebratory breakfast it’s usually a bubbly wine, but that happens no more than a couple times a year (and that’s me speaking as a student and students have more celebratory breakfast I believe).

24. Definently not. Most of the time I drink to get wasted. If that’s not the goal, I rather drink something non alcoholic which tastes better anyways.

    I’d drink wine if I was having a nice steak or something but not regularly.

25. Nope,not in Sweden. Drinking during the week is mostly off limits. Only city people and alcoholics do that.

26. No way, alcohol is not taken that lightly here and if someone drinks it, then it’s either at evening at home and after meal or during some holiday, preferably in second half of day. And it’s not wine most of the time. It could be beer, but it has low class perception, so it’s whiskey/wine/beer/cider/mead.

27. No, we drink beer with our meals. Wine is usually drunk during other social ocassions.

28. For someone that was in Finland for 5 months no
    And the only time I see was at parties and on special days

29. No, most people in Europe are in fact not alcoholics.

30. No, not true at all. Alcoholic drinks are *for the most part* reserved for the weekends, even if there are exceptions. It isn’t unheard of to maybe have some wine or beer to a festive dinner on an otherwise regular weekday. But I find that more common during summer, when it’s hot and people eat outside, often grilling.

    Alcoholic drinks during work lunches and similar are more or less frowned down upon in my experience, but it’s accepted among some groups. Definitely not the norm though.

    In my family, milk or water were the two options for regular meal drinks.

31. No off course not. What a weird assumption. Wine with breakfast is really weird anyways. And with lunch is also not common. When I visit Denmark last year I didn’t saw any sign of excessive alcohol consumption during meals.

32. Not unless you have guests over or are out to eat at a nice restaurant. Some people will have a beer with dinner but it’s definitely not always.

33. Depends a lot on the individual. Some people rarely if ever drink wine, and I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who do it habitually, of which a subset are alcoholic.

    I’d say the most common case in Denmark and Northern Germany would be to usually drink something non-alcoholic with your meal, maybe a beer in the evening. But if you have guests over for dinner or are making something fancy for yourself you’ll likely open a bottle.

34. I’ll always have wine whenever friends are over for dinner or just hanging out, but other than that I save all my drinking for the pub.

35. No. Usually it’s coffee, tea, some herbal infusion, water. We don’t drink wine or any other alcohol that often. Maybe on weekend or some celebrations.

36. People in Nordic countries are almost certainly the LEAST likely of all Europeans to do that.

37. Nope it is 60 % beer 35 % wine and 5 % are infants that only drink milk.

38. Never heard of the superior drink water that come out of the taps in scandinavian homes ?