This Year in Wine: Wine Trends 2019
The UK wine market is dominated by grape varieties we all love from countries we all know: Malbec from Argentina, Merlot from France, Pinot Grigio from Italy and Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. In the world of wine, what’s popular tends to be VERY popular.
Despite this, there are new and exciting trends to discover when you look beyond the supermarket shelf or the second-cheapest bottle of plonk on the menu! With this in mind, let’s explore the key trends that our wine specialists have tipped as the trends to watch in 2019.
Craft’s Coming Up
We saw it first with beer and then with gin, before it spread more broadly to spirits. Now, this trend is infiltrating the world of wine. We’re referencing of course the ever-more-common adoption of craft production among alcohol producers.
The growth of ‘craft’ wine production is fuelled by a growth in demand – a new wave of increasingly conscious consumers, who care about the provenance of the drinks in their glass, are looking for ethical, sustainable and responsible products to buy. Happily, this has led to an expanding range of vegan, natural, organic, biodynamic and low-intervention wines on the market. Try the Fiori range, the vegan-friendly product of indigenous Italian grapes.
The fantastic thing about these alternative production methods is that they are broadening the spectrum of what we expect wine to look, smell and taste like, resulting in more interesting wine for us to drink. We’re not complaining about that!
Low/No Alcohol
There was a time in the not-so-distant past when ‘alcohol-free’ options at the bar were very limited. No longer. It is now widely acknowledged that young people have a different relationship with alcohol than previous generations. Try The Bees Knees range of alcohol-free brut and sparkling rosé.
Despite the obvious challenges with creating an alcohol-free product that tastes like wine (which usually has an ABV of between 11% and 14%), winemakers and producers seem to have cracked the code, and it’s becoming easier and easier to find low-alcohol wines that taste like the real thing. For 2019, we predict a continued rise in the number of high-quality low- and no-alcohol wine options.
To us, it seems evident that all these trends are part of one bigger shift in the marketplace (a ‘megatrend’, if you will): the shift towards premiumisation, and we’re not just talking big-money bottles. For the modern consumer, premiumisation means provenance, quality over quantity, and diversity in the marketplace. Choice is the ultimate luxury. Try a Marlborough, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.