When I was a kid and something went wrong, like most of you, I sought out the unconditional loving support of my parents. A major “owee” was always soothed with a band aid and kiss from my Mom, a poor test score always found patient empathy from a compassionate Dad. Extracted tonsils required vanilla ice cream and a flu bug always managed to find me slurping on Chinese hot and sour soup to expedite the wellness factor. All are different actions and reactions, but all share the equation that something that caused pain was salved over by something that gave comfort.

Today’s tough economy (and tough would be a generous way to describe it) is seeing the need for major comforting all around. It’s said that insecurity supports comfort brands- whether they are Kleenex instead of the generic tissues, Oreos versus your generic cookie, or Tide as opposed to a supermarket detergent. Whether the hard dollars actually back this up is for the economists to say, not wine guys like me. That said, I can tell you that for food… and wine, tough economic times are fertile breeding grounds for comfort. From grocery store prepared meals to American restaurants, there are anecdotally tangible surges in classic comfort foods- meatloaf, burgers, pot roast and fried chicken. I find that you see bumps in these types of food when people are stressed.

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