Wine vs. Beer: The drink of the elite vs. the drink of the masses?

Devin made a comment in our second week about beer seeming more accessible than wine, and had the important insight that this was about more than price point. I strongly agree. From a brand perspective, beer does feel more accessible. I want to unpack that a bit in the context of the wine industry's future. I'm struggling with the question, "would it be more advantageous for wine to be seen as elite or accessible?" The case for elite: the best products come with feelings attached. In the case of wine, elitism allows wine to mark special occasions -- an anniversary celebration, a promotion, a successful end to a hard project, a reunion amongst dear friends. Elitism allows 21-year-olds to feel grown up as they make their first wine purchase -- it allows us to try on what it means to be "refined" or "professional" or "mature." There's deeper meaning to wine because of its status in our minds, and that meaning transfers to us so that we can gain status in our own minds by consuming it. The quest for these feelings -- specialness, celebration, status -- drives many wine sales. The case for accessible: however, these ideas are social constructs, and like all social constructs, they are interpreted differently by different micro-societies. As someone with a lot of social and cultural capital, it's easy for me to embrace the feelings and status that wine gives to me. For people who don't share my privilege, wine may seem exclusionary and not for them to try. Many in this population could afford to buy lower end bottles, but choose not to because they think of wine as a rich person's drink, or as a mark of pretention. This thoughts could be explicit, or just implicit and passed parent to child across recent generations. So there's tension here: would increasing the accessibility of wine's brand image detract from the desirable feelings its consumption imparts? My perspective: I don't think so, not in a way that can't be recovered from. I think lower end wine will be seen as lower class, and that middle class consumption could move to higher price points to compensate. I think higher priced wine will remain entrenched as "luxury." Furthermore, I think it's important for this evolution to happen. There's a glut of supply, and while demand has been rising, at some point this will level out if we don't overcome the "class wall" and establish wine as something that can be enjoyed by all. I would be very interested to hear others' opinions too!