Three reasons to be optimistic about the future of the wine business

wine business futureMaybe there are reasons not to be so doomy and gloomy about the future of the wine business

Mike Dunne, one of the most perceptive people I know in the wine business, left a comment recently that not all is doom and gloom with wine. The Wine Curmudgeon has been especially doomy and gloomy about wine’s future, and with good reason. Just when it seems like the news can’t get any worse, it does.  How does Constellation, one of the smartest companies in the business, overvalue assets it’s selling by a billion dollars?

Still, Mike being Mike, his comment made me ponder. Does he see something that I don’t? In one respect, Mike is completely correct – the wine business isn’t going to vanish tomorrow. And who knows? Maybe young people, who currently seem as interested in wine as I do in the Kardashians, will eventually change their minds. I’m always willing to admit I’m wrong — and hope I am, in this case.

So, given those two conditions, maybe there are three reasons for optimism that I have overlooked:

• The re-emergence of lower alcohol wines. We won the battle against 15 percent chardonnay and 16 percent cabernet sauvigon at the end of the recession, and most wines today are made with more or less normal alcohol levels. If wine drinkers can convince producers we don’t want our rose to kick like tequila, then maybe we can convince them that smooth and sweet isn’t a good idea, either.

• Rose’s success. When I started the blog, rose was a dirty word and difficult to find in shops, stores, and restaurants. The wine business told us to drink white zinfandel and lump it. Today, white zinfandel is an afterthought and even the biggest of Big Wine companies are scurrying to produce what they call dry rose. So we won that one, too.

• Reform in the three-tier system, which limits the wine we can buy and where we can buy it, and decides how much we pay for it. I recently exchanged emails with the blog’s unofficial liquor law attorney, and he was excited about a Connecticut three-tier case that upheld that state’s minimum pricing law. Why excited, since three-tier won the case? Because, said the attorney, the appeals court’s decision was so silly and went against so much precedent that it could be overturned by the Supreme Court. Throw in the Tennessee case currently in front of the Supreme Court, and we have a chance to fire two silver bullets into three-tier’s body.

2 thoughts on “Three reasons to be optimistic about the future of the wine business

  • By Darrell -

    Palm Bay International’s Italian brand Cavit has added a new wine to its lineup. Made with a blend of red grapes sourced from northeastern Italy, Cavit Sweet Red is now available nationwide for a retail price of $10 a 750-ml. or $15 a 1.5-liter. Cavit is the No.-1 Italian brand by volume in the U.S., according to Impact Databank, depleting nearly 3.5 million cases in 2018.

    What did you just say about smooth and sweet? Can’t wait to try this “authentic” Italian red.

  • By Bill McIver -

    The fine wine industry will survive and grow because there is not enough land suitable for growing wine grape varietals in the world to meet the slightest increase in consumption. Bill McIver, with wife, a founder of Matanzas Creek Winery

Comments are closed.