Devil's Advocate: What to Expect from 2025, and Why? Part 2 - Styles

In part two of his three-part series of predictions for 2025, Robert Joseph looks at some specific sectors within and outside the industry.

Reading time: 5m

Portrait by Cath Lowe. Robert Joseph/Midjourney AI (All other images, also Midjourney AI)
Portrait by Cath Lowe. Robert Joseph/Midjourney AI (All other images, also Midjourney AI)

Cannabis is often forgotten as a competitor to wine, but the numbers tell their own story.

Weed grows

While alcohol consumption falls, cannabis use is growing. Euromonitor estimates 2023 legal sales of $47bn - 13% up on 2022. They predict compound growth of 18% annually from 2023 to 2028 as “more geographies are moving from prohibition to controlling and taxing cannabinoid products”. If accurate, that would mean a global legal market value of around $100bn - not far off a third of that of the current estimated wine market. 
 

Functional ‘wines’

For the same well-being-related reasons that people are increasingly turning away from alcohol, there will be growth of beverages ‘improved’ by the addition of vitamins, stress-relieving adaptogens, CBD, THC (where legal) and nootropics that enhance brain function. Some of these will be made with NA ‘wine’. 

Will this be driven by snake-oil salespeople like the ones who promoted ‘clean wine’ and ‘legal highs’? Of course, but I’m predicting, not recommending.
 

Fine wine; choppy waters

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 index fell by 13% in 2023, and a further 11% last year. Too many bottles are gathering dust in private cellars. Their owners are not drinking or selling, them - or looking to buy new releases such as the - mixed-quality - 2024 vintage in Bordeaux.

One Boreaux chateau owner is said to be considering giving up one of his wines’ second label. Instead, he’ll produce a larger quantity to sell through supermarkets.

Would he still offer it en primeur or through la Place de Bordeaux? Will others follow?

And what about the unconsumed fine wine he and his neighbours have already sold?

Napa woes

In 2023, Napa Valley Cabernet grapes cost around $9.000 per ton. Last year, grapes from prime Rutherford, St Helena, Oak Knoll and Oakville were $4-5,000. Expect attractive offers to wine club members, joint efforts with other luxury products, and more - metaphorical or real - for sale boards across California.
 

Turning white

The most recent US SipSource data show all red wine categories and Chardonnay falling, but other white categories either grew - albeit from low bases – or barely changed. An increase in Blanc de Noirs production seems inevitable - as does a transformation of many vineyards.
 

Less rosy prospects

SipSource data show a 13% fall in US rosé sales but pink wine has become a popular year-round beverage. Strongly branded, well-packaged, premium and super-premium pink wine is still a strong sector, as is confirmed by LVMH’s investment in Whispering Angel and Pernod Ricard’s retention of its Sainte Marguerite Provence brand while offloading its other still wine brands. 

Expect more higher-priced ($50-100) examples, a broader range of colours, and a growth in the sales of sparkling rosé.

High strength and wine cocktails

The XXL brand reportedly shipped around 20m bottles from Moldova to the US, with an ABV of 16%, fruit flavouring, and marketing firmly targeted at Gen Z. With its similarly powerful Australian counterpart, Mullet, this may reflect an alternative trend to the widely publicised one towards ‘lighter reds’.

Meanwhile, Stella Rosa will continue to forge ahead with its Italian fruit-flavoured wines, including its best-selling 5% Mango Chilli, Stand by for more wine cocktails of various styles, strengths and packaging.
 

Sugar, sugar

Consumers like sweet wine, as Constellation's Meiomi in the US and Felix Solis's Mucho Mas/The Guv'nor in Spain and others have proved, with reds carrying 18-20 g/l of residual sugar. While professionals swoon over the small amounts of dry amber wines it makes in its qvevris, Georgia exports far more sweet red to China and Poland. There will be more of this.
 

More PIWIs, but with a name change?

'PIWI', an abbreviation of 'Pilzwiderstandsfähige Traubensorten' - the German for 'fungal resistant grapes' - may appeal to producers in Germany and Italy. Americans remember Pee-Wee Herman a children's TV actor arrested for indecent exposure.

However, climatic conditions and the need to cut down on chemical treatments will encourage producers globally to experiment with these varieties. Last year, Tesco, the UK chain won applause for launching an own-label Floreal, but it made no mention of the 'P' word, preferring to refer to the 'hardy variety'. Maybe this is this how PIWIs will be known.

Blends and bourbon barrel-aged wines come out of the shadows

In the US, 'Red Blends' have been a key category since before Constellation bought The Prisoner for $247m. Today, sales come second or third to the biggest category, Cabernet Sauvignon. Elsewhere, however, the phenomenon has passed largely unnoticed, and the expression is often presumed to refer to PDO wines made from more than one variety, as opposed to the California model where the recipe and origins are chosen by the producer. This very profitable model also protects individual SKUs from direct comparison. Felix Solis and the Perrin family have, respectively, exploited the concept successfully with Mucho Mas/The Guv'nor and La Vieille Ferme. Others will follow, especially as the use of PIWIs becomes more common.

For similar reasons, sales of wine aged in spirits barrels may grow internationally. 
 

Orange/amber

Industry Arc research expects the global value of amber wine to grow by 5% annually to hit $66m in 2030. This is probably an underestimate because, apart from Georgia, Cramele Recas in Romania and Gerard Bertrand in France, most examples are  produced by small, untracked wineries. Currently, however, there is little evidence that many consumers are falling in love with the style.

Volumes will remain small. And, while amber wine and natural wine are not synonymous, they are closely associated in the minds of many professionals and consumers. 
 

Natural wine hits a plateau?

A 2024 Vitisphere report suggested that, in France, growth in the number of producers and unreasonable expectations by buyers had led to unprecedented levels of unsold stock. As wholesaler and activist Fleur Godart said “These days, we're dealing with… sommeliers who want to put ‘zero sulphur’ on their lists… But they're asking for a wine that has no faults, costs less than €8, lasts a week in an opened bottle and, if possible, is reliably delivered. Well, there's no such thing…”

Autochthonous - hard to spell, say and sell

Even fans of traditional grape varieties often prefer the word, ‘indigenous’, just as consumers favour the familiarity and pronounceability of varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. More autochthonous vines will be planted, however, partly because of their resistance to climate change and disease, but their names may not appear on labels. By the same token, as often in Greece, for example, ‘international’ varieties will continue to ‘improve’ local wines.
 

Organic going into reverse gear?

The organic/bio wine market is estimated as being worth around $11bn, with analysts such as Skyquest predicting it will hit $23-27bn by 2030, thanks in part to the expansion of certified vineyards. But 2024’s European climatic conditions and consumer unwillingness to pay premium prices raise questions over the economic viability of organic certification. While some are still in conversion to becoming organic, others are giving up.

There is also the ongoing problem of copper residues, although some organic producers are succeeding with alternatives to that treatment.

In the US, organic wines are further handicapped by new rules introduced that require importers to obtain their own certification.

2025 could be the year when a significant number of producers switch to regenerative agriculture, even if it doesn’t (yet) come with a well-marketed certificate. 


Next week, in the final part, I will wrap up with a set of other key factors and markets worth watching in 2025.

Opinion

It’s that time of the year, and, given the current state of the world, and the wine industry in particular, Robert Joseph thinks a little crystal ball gazing is in order - even if some of what he foresees may not be entirely welcome. Part one of a three-part series.

Reading time: 6m

The views and opinions expressed in the Devil's Advocate pieces are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the publication. They are intended to provoke discussion and debate. If you would like to offer your own response to this or any other article, please email the editor-in-chief, Anja Zimmer at zimmer@meininger.de.

 

 

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