World's Biggest Wine Country: USA

A recent study suggests that by 2008, the United States will become the world's biggest wine consumer. This would mean it would jump past countries like France, Italy, and Spain. Wine is already a $100 billion market and all signs indicate it will continue to grow. Americans are drinking more and more wine, and are willing to pay much more for it than Europeans.

This increase in wine consumption is occuring not only in the United States, but all across the world. This is obviously causing changes in the wine industry. Most visible is the "internationalization" of wine styles- toward more familiar and crowd-pleasing tastes, rather than the wide variety of the past. This has many wine connoisseurs concerned about taste as well as quality.

The wine market will be an interesting one to watch over the next three years to see if the report is correct. It seems all the statistical evidence points towards the United States leading the world in increasing the consumption of wine. My main question is what accounts for this rapid increase in wine consumption in the United States? Nevermind the overall world's increase, but I wonder why the United States specifically is expected to jump ahead of major wine consuming countries like France, Italy, and Spain. Any thoughts on this?