People who grow wine grapes and make wine, and even those in the marketing side, are constantly aiming for a moving target. Along with that there is usually a long lead time to implement changes. It's not quite as bad as making cars, for instance, where styles, engineering, and technologies change every couple years it seems. But it's definitely more unpredictable than growing soybeans!
Wine Styles
Chardonnay has been the #1 selling wine in the U.S. for a long time. What hasn't stayed the same is the style. In the 1990s and 2000s oak and butter and maybe a little residual sugar got to be the thing. The backlash against this style may have went a bit too far with the "naked" chardonnays as many of these have nothing distinctive about them at all (they're boring). We may get back to some soft of balance eventually.
Beginning in the late 1990s alcohol levels made a major jump not for the sake of having more alcohol in the wine, but for the fruity, sweet-tasting flavors it creates. This started with zinfandel and has moved on to many New World red wines. This means the wines can be consumed sooner rather than having to wait ten years for your cabernet to mellow out. The majority of wine purchased off a store shelf is drunk within a couple days.
Not a style exactly, but you're hearing more interest in earth-friendly wines with terms like organic, biodynamic, sustainable, and natural wines. Most of these take several years to move towards and you want the interest in these wines to still be there when you are.
Wine Varieties
Varieties come and go. Like was said above chardonnay is #1 and cabernet sauvignon #2. After that there have been many changes with things like syrah, pinot noir, pinot gris, and merlot coming on then falling off. Syrah actually never quite caught on after all the hype it received about 25 years ago. Enough so that many planted it waiting for the big paydays that never quite came.
This is all in the vineyard, of course, and requires planting or pulling out something else and replanting with The Next Big Thing. There are several years lead time between this expensive step and your first wines being ready to sell. So by the time you're ready to enter the market the buying public may have already moved on.
Prices People are Willing to Pay
The ups and downs in the economy have a major effect on what people are willing to pay for a bottle of wine. Most wines fall in the category of a luxury good and not many are willing to splurge if they're worried about keeping their job. During the Great Recession the under $10 wines sold best. Now there's way too many wines at the low end and they aren't selling well. In today's economy it's actually the $15 to $100 range that's doing best with $15-$20 being the sweet spot. When you're buying grapes and have a certain way you do things in the cellar you can't just take your $50 cab and reprice it at $8 and make money.
Different ages of consumers will spend different amounts on a bottle of wine. Naturally, people in their 20s don't generally have the disposable income to buy the higher priced wines that you see people in their 50s buying. Those in their 60s and later are retiring or near retirement so aren't as likely to spend big on a bottle. I'm talking about the slowly moving target of the age of consumers. The largest are the Boomers and the Millennials. The Boomers are aging out of the premium wine market while the Millennials aren't quite ready to enter it. This sounds like in a few years there may not be the market for many of the premium wines now produced.
Climate
Most everyone growing or making wine is worried about things warming up, weather getting more erratic, and droughts. Suppose Napa gets too warm for cabernet or western Oregon too warm for pinot noir. Does this mean Napa becomes the next Lodi and Oregon the new Napa? At least this major upheaval wouldn't happen overnight.
No comments:
Post a Comment