America is the world’s leading market for wine, thanks to an unprecedented five-decade boom that transformed wine from a cottage industry to a cultural phenomenon here. So what do the next five decades hold? Challenges loom, but if wine embraces its strengths, the future offers even brighter days.
Starting in the Vineyards
Wine starts in the vineyards. And that’s where its future will begin, too. A bottle of wine, whether vinified by a mom-and-pop winery making just 1,500 cases a year or by a global corporation turning out tens of thousands of cases, starts with bunches of grapes growing on a vine.
Somehow in the past decade, the wine community has allowed that idea to fade. Consumers today say they want products that are natural and artisanal. Wine perfectly fits that definition, but is somehow losing market share to fermented malt beverages with added fruit flavors and carbonation. But wine doesn’t need to pander to younger consumers or abandon its loyal fans. All it needs to do is embrace its strengths and remember what makes it unique unto itself.
Talk to any winemaker about the future and they will tell you that climate change is the biggest concern they have. Fifty years ago, vintners were focused on new ideas for maximizing ripeness: planting vines on south-facing slopes, trellising the canes for maximum sunlight, thinning leaves and dropping bunches to fully ripen the remaining fruit.
Today, walk with growers through their rows and they’ll tell you a different story. Now the goal is to keep sugars in the grapes from ripening too quickly, allow tannins to ripen too, and maintain some acidity. “It’s pretty clear that we need to look at shading differently,” says Greg Jones, a climate scientist specializing in vineyards and CEO of Oregon’s Abacela Winery. “We need to take a VSP, which means vertical shoot position trellising, and then turn it into a true V-shaped canopy. If you can keep the fruit a little bit more shaded, a little less heat-stressed during the hottest part of the season, then yes, we can adapt a little bit around that changing climate.”
Napa’s Chuck Wagner agrees. “We’ve gotten so much more knowledgeable about leaves and clusters and how many to leave on,” says the proprietor of Caymus and Wagner Family.
Jones has been tracking data in regions such as Bordeaux, Australia and Oregon for decades. He says that the climate models accurately predicted the warmer temperatures we see now. And that we need to begin preparing for even hotter temperatures in the coming decades.
“Just look at Oregon,” he says. “There were no commercial vineyard plantings prior to the early 1960s in the Willamette Valley. And the reason was it was too cold, too wet and the growing season wasn’t long enough. Fast forward to today. You could say the same thing for Tasmania. You could say the same thing for southern England.”
The changing climate isn’t just bringing higher temperatures across the board, but also less predictable growing seasons. Europe has fallen victim to heavy frosts in recent years because spring is starting earlier, which triggers budbreak, but then cold fronts have come through and killed the young buds. In California, climate shifts have brought drought and wildfires.
Jones also believes we need to take a harder look at the possible success of less-mainstream grape varieties in the face of the weather shifts, something Bordeaux has already begun investigating. He acknowledges that introducing new grapes is perceived as a marketing challenge, but thinks it doesn’t need to be. “Seven varieties make up 50% of our planted wine grape acreage worldwide,” Jones says. “We have over 5,000 unique varieties of Vitis vinifera in the world. And yet we do so much with just a few of them. Is it the consumer that’s driving that? Or is it the producer? Remember, back in the ’50s and ’60s, nobody could pronounce Cabernet Sauvignon.”
Younger consumers are more open to trying newer wines, including different varieties and regions. They have already embraced red blends from California, a category that few thought had a future a decade ago. And as regions such as New York’s Finger Lakes or England’s Kent warm up, those newly discovering wine will likely be game to try them. Novelty can be a marketing asset with the wine-curious.
“Climate change will be the biggest challenge for vintners,” says David Block, a professor and chair at University of California, Davis, home to the preeminent enology program in America. “But it can also be an opportunity.”
There are robots working in the experimental vineyard at U.C., Davis; the small machines check moisture levels, monitor grape ripeness and more. Block says the moisture sensors will allow vineyards to use water more efficiently as drought becomes more common. And test vehicles are now being launched in a partnership with Monarch Tractors, a California firm developing electric and self-driving tractors.
The Davis projects will help address grapegrowing’s two biggest challenges in the coming years: farming more sustainably and farming during labor shortages. Due to a drop in immigration and a new generation of workers looking for careers other than manual farming, California is grappling with a significant vineyard and winery worker deficit.
Farming sustainably in hopes of combatting climate change can also mean better grapes. More and more West Coast wineries are shifting to organic, biodynamic and now regenerative farming, which aims to increase soil health while cultivating grapes.
These techniques can also be vocalized to help win over consumers who say they want more natural products. “The wineries are going to be the ones who stop herbicide use, things like Roundup, because they’re going to tell growers they don’t want that stuff in their wines because consumers don’t,” says Dan Petroski, owner of Napa’s Massican and former winemaker at Napa’s Larkmead.
Petroski does think the wine industry needs to come up with better, clearer messages on sustainable farming: “Consumers know one term from marketing and that’s ‘organic.’ They don’t know what sustainable means. They don’t know what regenerative means. They have trust that organic is healthier. I think we need to build upon that and stop with the 75 different certifications for sustainability.”
What’s in Your Wine?
On every can of White Claw, America’s best-selling hard seltzer by a wide margin, you’ll see the words “Made Pure.” The company actually trademarked the phrase. You’ll also see “The Purest Hard Seltzer in the World,” and written on the back is something almost no wine label yet has: nutritional and ingredient information. Every can of White Claw stresses that the product contains 100 calories per serving and just 2 grams added sugar. Ingredients include purified carbonated water, alcohol, natural flavors, cane sugar, citric acid, natural fruit juice concentrate and sodium citrate.
A typical glass of red wine has 120 calories and less than 2 grams residual sugar. Ingredients include fermented grapes, sulfites for preservation and possibly tartaric acid or oak tannins. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at the label on your bottle.
The wine industry has long resisted nutritional and ingredient labeling, arguing that consumers may be confused over some ingredients and that it’s too difficult to test changing nutritional values from vintage to vintage. Soon though, winemakers may not have a choice—the European Union is considering requiring ingredient labels on all wines sold there. But in the name of transparency, U.S. wineries should embrace broader labels now.
Today’s consumers care deeply about what they eat and drink, and they are used to checking the labels on the products they buy. “We put two things on every label,” says Jones. “We put alcohol and we put sulfites, and they’re both negative. Why don’t we print everything that’s in there and give it a positive spin?”
Spin can have a negative connotation, but when it comes to marketing wines in the future, the industry will need to know when to pivot and when to hold still. One place where the industry needs to pivot if it’s going to keep growing is to knock down unnecessary barriers. “Is wine doing enough to welcome new consumers? No. Wine has historically had a gatekeeper mindset,” says Robert Hanson, who heads Constellation’s premium wine and spirits arm.
Why change? Because no industry can be stagnant. (In the 17th century, Champagne’s vintners considered bubbles a fault.) Wine sales have slowed in the past decade, but dips have happened before. In the 1980s, some Americans drank less alcohol, perhaps due to two recessions and a new focus on health. But the 1990s brought a boom for wine as the economy prospered and 60 Minutes highlighted the French Paradox, a theory positing that wine contributed positively to the health and longevity of the French population, despite their generally high-fat diet.
So what can producers do to communicate wine’s appeals to the next generation and build the next boom?
“The question that I have for us as an industry is how are we going to meet the wine consumer where they’re at today?” says Stephanie Gallo, chief marketing officer at E. & J. Gallo. “The spirits industry, as well as the breweries, have done a better job of meeting the next generation of consumers where they are.”
So how does the wine industry knock down barriers and make connections while still espousing the joy of wine’s complexity? Hanson believes it’s about staying true to the quality of the wine: “When I took this job, I asked the team, ‘What is Kim Crawford?’ If it’s a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, there’s only so far you can grow that. If it’s a brand focused on younger female consumers that delivers a certain style, you can grow that without losing its identity.” In addition to its New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, Kim Crawford now includes a Prosecco and will soon feature a French rosé. The wines are marketed to the same consumer while leveraging the brands as a quality product.
On the flip side, Hanson argues, “We would never do that with Robert Mondavi Winery, whose identity is about Napa terroir.”
There’s a similar consideration toward packaging. High-end iconic wines destined for restaurant tables are likely always going to be sold in a bottle, probably sealed with a cork. But as American consumers expand their enjoyment of wine to other occasions, new packaging appropriate to those occasions is being welcomed. For example, casual restaurants and wine bars can reduce waste and cost with wine packaged in kegs.
Most high-end beer companies made the switch years ago to four-packs of 16 oz. cans that can sell for nearly $30 due to the packaging’s affordability, light weight and easy chilling. Now, wine drinkers headed for the beach or taking in a sporting event at the stadium, where glass is banned, can enjoy an array of wine in cans. Bags-in-boxes (more easy to recycle) and plastic bottles are suitable for camping, picnics and more.
The pandemic accelerated another trend for many wineries: online sales. “The past three years have taught us that it’s going to be difficult to predict what’s going to happen over the next 10 years,” says Gallo. “Everything has basically changed since the pandemic. The economy has changed, consumers have changed, preferences have changed, shopping and buying have changed. And I think everyone is trying to adapt and evolve to try to make sense out of it all. But we believe that with change also comes opportunity.”
In the past two decades, many small wineries, too small to get distributors’ attention, seized the opportunity and became the first to shift their sales to direct to consumer (DTC). But they also depended on attracting new customers by drawing people to their tasting rooms. The pandemic forced them to find new ways to reach people. This can be another opportunity if they learn to better target their sales efforts exactly at the consumers who are most likely to buy their wine.
The pandemic also forced retailers to focus on online sales, with an eye to customer convenience. Now, with the help of delivery partners, they’re doing more business that way. Once a customer has browsed wine reviews online, made their selections and had those bottles of wine conveniently delivered to their door, it’s less appealing to go back to driving, parking and loading heavy boxes.
The regulatory landscape is still working to catch up to this newfound consumer preference. The next decades are undoubtedly going to see more legal challenges to the three-tier system, which mandates wine pass from producer to distributor to retailer or restaurant. As people grow more accustomed to easy online shopping, they’re going to expect the wine industry to adapt and reduce barriers.
Some believe that the move to market to new consumers, combined with digital retail, will create more passionate wine lovers. “If you listen to your customer as they grow and change, they’re going to tell you what they want,” says Christian Navarro, president of Wally’s Wines in Los Angeles.
“I think the world has changed,” he adds. “Twenty years ago the somm used to [teach] the restaurant diner, the wine clerk used to [inform] the store customer. With all this information out there, we have people that are armed with more knowledge than me. The key for us is listening.”
Let Wine Be Wine
All these changes may sound dramatic, but they are really just a matter of making wine more welcoming by embracing its strengths. For centuries, wine has been the alcoholic beverage of choice for people sitting together to enjoy a meal. How we enjoy that meal may change in coming decades, but wine will still be the ideal beverage. Wineries need to emphasize the natural combination of wine and food as dining together returns to the fore.
“Maybe I am assuming too much,” says Wagner. “But if a good meal is enhanced by wine, and good friends want to enjoy their friendships, there will always be a place for wine at the dinner table.”
