Devil's Advocate: Wine Industry Changes Aren't Cyclical

There was a time before

• Emails, wifi and SEO
• Streaming music and movies
• Uber and AirBnB
• Amazon and Ebay
• Deliveroo and Shopify
• Smartphones, Social Media and selfies
• Varietal wines and No-lo wines
• Wine critic scores, Vivino and influencers
• Wine bars where you can buy wine by the glass using a plastic card
• Screwcaps and Diam
• Bag in Box and wine in cans
• Natural wine and Bourbon barrel wine
• English Sparkling Wine and Polish Riesling
• Wine tourism and ‘storytelling’
   

For want of a better term, I'll call those days the 'then-time'. 

Unlike the 'now-time' we think we are living in today.

It really doesn't matter whether you think that any or all of the now-time items are better or worse than what we had in the then-time. What does matter is that the moment we are all living in is already metamorphosing into a subtly or significantly different then-time - for almost everyone on this planet, including us if we are lucky enough to survive.

The metamorphosis is happening increasingly quickly, and the rate of change will accelerate. Just think of the speed at which Instagram and TikTok have pushed Facebook into the shadows.

So, what’s my point?

When I discuss the challenges facing the wine industry, all too often people will respond with 'it's all cyclical'. Which is precisely how French vinous grandees treated the early successful exports of Californian and Australian varietal wine to the UK. Brits, it was asserted, had been drinking wine from their closest neighbour for centuries. Their flirtation with fruity Chardonnay and Cabernet would not last.

Kodak film and daily newspapers

History has proved just how wrong they were - like the people who believed that women would never wear trousers in smart company, that cameras would continue to rely on rolls of film and that people would go on getting their information from daily newspapers.

Anyone who imagines that the status quo in any part of their personal or professional life is going to remain unscathed need only try living without a smartphone or Google for a day or so.

And that’s how I see far too much of the wine industry as it fails to address the implications of the imminent reduction of 15-20% in vineyard acreage and the growth in the adult market for non-alcoholic drinks

In the millennia-long then-time prior to the 19th century, the only way to get from A to B any faster than you could walk or run, involved a horse. 

Then along came the automobile. Which many then-time folk dismissed as a fad. 

In much the same way that Donald Trump treated electric cars in a recent speech.

Until very recently, almost the only 'adult drinks', apart from tea and coffee, contained alcohol. And the only civilised partner to a good meal was wine.

Today, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Stockholm offers three alternatives with its five-course tasting menu. There's the option of a different no-alc beverage with each dish, a set of wines, or a series of cocktails.

The owners and sommeliers of that establishment and their happy customers are, respectively, profitably and happily living in the now-time.

The many members of the industry who imagine that wine - and other alcoholic drinks - will ever regain their unassailable monopoly, are no different to the blinkered horse-riders of 150 years ago.

Obstinately living in their then-time.