If you follow the wine press, the prevailing narrative is that wine is in decline. Many complain that London Wine Fair is smaller now. That there are “fewer wines” and more canned wine, 0% wine and alternative formats.
And whilst this year’s fair was quieter and smaller, it was no less productive for those who showed up. The fair feels more regional than international these days, but most exhibitors I spoke with described having one of their best and most commercially productive London Wine Fairs yet.
Why? The answer may lie in the changing shape of the industry. The entry points are changing.
People understandably do not want to drink Yellow Tail forever. Every generation eventually moves on from its gateway wines. Beaujolais Nouveau Day had its moment. Mateus Rosé too.
The future of the wine industry may belong to those who understand and embrace the next generation of entry points.
How sobriety helps us all, really
Whilst it remains clear that industrial de-alcoholisation techniques such as reverse osmosis and spinning cone technology do not magically turn bad bulk wine into good wine, low alcohol wines are improving generally.
Mid-strength wines, such as Jessica Ennis-Hill’s Seven Summers rosé at 7% ABV, are a welcome addition to the category.
And even bad 0% wine is not necessarily an existential threat to traditional wine. A customer choosing a poor quality alcohol-free wine is probably not rejecting your beautiful Côtes du Rhône. More likely, they are rejecting the kind of generic supermarket wine they were already drifting away from anyway, even if it now comes in a can.
More importantly, millions of people are still being introduced to wine culture through these products and formats. Some will inevitably become more curious over time.
The more interesting producers are approaching the category from a winemaking perspective rather than an industrial one.
Our friends at Quinta da Plansel have created a 0% contender not by stripping alcohol from finished wine, but by stopping fermentation before it begins. The juice is chilled, stabilised, blended with mineral water and lightly carbonated.
The result is not a compromised imitation of wine, but something refreshing in its own right. A more natural alternative to the supermarket zeros.
Traditional wine looked defensive. That may be an opportunity.
At times, the wine fair resembled the early stages of the Napoleonic Wars.
France, host nation the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, Italy dominated the fair visually, with vast national pavilions and satellites throughout the floor.
Even sections such as Esoterica and Wine Unearthed felt smaller and less international, as Portuguese and Austrian producers competed for space alongside yet more French exhibitors.
The retreat toward Europe’s familiar centres of gravity is understandable during uncertain times. But it may also create opportunity.
Because whilst parts of the trade appear to be retreating toward safer and more familiar wines, consumers themselves may never have been more open-minded.
British drinkers can now visit their local vineyard and discover wine through a skin contact Bacchus. Others enter through low alcohol products, canned wine or natural wine bars. Many younger drinkers arrive with fewer inherited assumptions about what wine is “supposed” to be.
In short, the consumer has never been so unshackled from traditional wine hierarchies. Yet parts of the trade have rarely looked more defensive.
The opportunity is clear.
Those who win over the next generation of wine drinkers will not simply defend the old categories. They will embrace the new entry points and guide that curiosity somewhere more interesting.
The low and no. The cans. The local vineyard. The unfamiliar grape. The overlooked region.
Not as replacements for traditional wine culture, but as future customers arriving through a different door.