Wine is all about change – new vintages, new wineries, new regions – and in a country as large and diverse as the United States, the level of change and evolution must be pretty fast.

Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you?

In reality, what a check on US searching patterns suggests is that, as a country, it is almost seamlessly homogenous, with very little variation in search patterns when viewed across the past 20 years. Quite the opposite to the chatter on social media and the wine media, which would have you believe that the US wine scene is in a state of near-constant flux, as new generations search for new styles, and new grape varieties from new, little-known regions.

That might be the skinny from the cool kids on Twitter and the sommelier world, which depends on being edgy and esoteric when it comes to wine in order to maintain its self-proclaimed superiority; but it is not what we see when we take a state-by-state look at what US users have been looking for over the past two decades.

How we did this was to look back to our first year and then rank all the wines that have appeared most frequently in each state searched for since 1999. The results list the three wines that have amassed the greatest number of searches and the results are strikingly similar.

Let me give you a clue: the top three searches are almost identical in every state; the line up is almost inevitably a Champagne, a Bordeaux and, less frequently but still turning up with monotonous regularity, a Napa wine.

Let's take them in order. The Champagne is Dom Pérignon, which is hardly surprising, given it is consistently among our most searched-for wines. What is quite amazing is the sheer domination of the searches – it tops the charts in 29 states, easily the most popular wine. It also turns up in the top three of every state bar California, Virginia, Hawaii and Utah. It also tops the list in the District of Columbia, which we measure separately.

Such a level of penetration is quite amazing. It doesn't even feature for California, which is the source of comfortably more searches than the next three – New York, Texas and Florida – put together.

The Bordeaux component of the mix is a little more democratic. Several wines feature, but Château Lafite Rothschild leads with nine most popular placings, followed by Château Margaux with five. Mouton makes several appearances in second and third places, too, and there are even some brave outposts of independence where Petrus gets a look in – Virginia, most notably, where Bordeaux rules the roost, with Margaux on top and Lafite in third. Utah, perhaps surprisingly, given its status as a virtual no-go area for wine, also returns a Bordeaux-only top three, with Latour first, followed by Haut-Brion and Margaux.

The Napa wine that features the most is Opus One, which is probably the most obvious choice, given its status as Napa's most consistently popular wine on Wine-Searcher across the years. It is the most-searched for wine in four states – California, predictably enough, but also Kentucky, Hawaii and Nebraska. In fact, Nebraska has two Napa wines in its top three, with the Joseph Phelps Insignia also putting in an appearance.

It's probably more useful to look at the outliers than the general trend, so let's all hail Washington for starters. While the Evergreen state might have Lafite and Dom in the silver and bronze placings, it proudly and unashamedly puts its own wine first – in this case Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon, from the Columbia Valley.

Kentucky also deserves a shout-out. While Opus One and Dom take the top two spots, Saint-Émilion star Château Ausone is in third spot.

Delaware is another fiercely (well, partly) independent state when it comes to wine. Yes, they've got Dom in second place and Opus One third, but by far the most interesting wine to the residents of the Blue Hen state is the unlikely Domino Moscato from Argentina. In fairness, this is because of a sudden, stratospheric spike in interest in the wine in 2013, but it still puts it top of the pops in Delaware.

West Virginia deserves a hat tip here, too. Yes, Dom Pérignon tops the list, and Opus One comes third, but elbowing its way between the two is the deathlessly classy Tim Smith's Climax Moonshine, which appeared regularly on our overall list of the most searched-for wines in the world when the Moonshiners series was on the Discovery Channel. There's a lot to be said for the marketing attraction of bib overalls and a battered cowboy hat, clearly.

Pride of place, though, for such an august assemblage of lists, must go to South Dakota, where Dom (third) and Opus One (second) are headed off by the wonderfully named Red Ass Rhubarb, a local tipple made at the Prairie Berry Winery. The legend goes that the winemaker's father accidentally added elderberry to a tank of "Razzy Rhubarb" fruit wine. His face went red and he felt like an ass, thereby developing the state's most searched-for wine, ever. Truly, from tiny acorns mighty oaks grow.

But enough of the snide asides, let us look to the future instead. While the past 20 years have thrown back three clear winners – Dom Pérignon, Lafite and Opus One, according to the total searches – there are signs that this could be changing. The past five years have shown a gradual increase in searches for Mouton, particularly, and a huge increase in interest in Italian wines. Last year, Maine, Illinois and New Jersey all had at least one Italian wine in the top three.

Maybe the old ways are changing after all.

To view on Wine-Searcher, please click here.