| 08/16/18 7:58 PM
What are the current wine trends in the world?
Wine, as all natural products, is influenced by the climate, which varies every year, and follows very logical market principals. The demand is defined by the end consumer. He is more and more informed and curious nowadays, changing his preferences to more interesting wines with better quality and easy supply channels. This is what wine producers should take into consideration and moreover should systematically follow the changes in wine lovers’ mindset. That gives them the opportunity to adapt in the sense of style and varieties of their wine and communication and sales channels.
Nielsen, Euromonitor and Wine Market Council current researches define trends in the world wine market for next couple of years.
The first trend is connected with wine origin and its’ authenticity. For wine lovers it becomes more important to enjoy local varieties. Bulgarian Heritage, for instance, is one of the first entirely local brands on Bulgarian market which contains only homegrown wine varieties. Dimyat, misket and mavrud are much more interesting for international audience than merlot and cabernet sauvignon, unless if the last two are produced in their home country: France. However, there is one exception: chardonnay wins more and more supporters, because it embodies in different styles and at least one can fit to wine lovers’.
The second worldwide trend is connected with the bottle or rather by replacing it with other storage vessels. Along with the discussions about cork, glass stopper and screw cap it appears that the best package, in terms of environmental protection and consumer’s comfort, is the well-known bag-in-box used mostly for table wines. Wine in cans, unthinkable few years ago, becomes modern. While before wine stored in anything other than bottle closed with cork was associated with low quality, nowadays after a lot of researches it turns out that is not true. Having in mind, though, the conservative thinking in the industry, distributors’ pressure and lack of awareness and wine culture along the consumer, all those trends need more time to have an impact on the market.
Other interesting trends from the world of wine are related to the higher interest in sparkling wines and rose. Bubbles are synonym to elegance, lightness and sophisticated taste. Although, prosecco and champagne are leading in sales, more and more wine lovers discover the qualities of French cremant, Spanish cava and Italian franciacorta. In terms of rose wines, the love of wine consumer to different styles is not anything new and the market of rose is one of the few with a continuous growth in the last couple of years. It is a good compromise between white and red wine, and wonderful aperitif, winning sympathy worldwide. Bulgaria is also in line with this wine trend, offering rose from many different types.
Natural and orange wines are still with high demand: not only because of the increased self-consciousness for the environment and returning to our roots and traditions, but because their style is distinctive, interesting and more people like it.
Along with the higher female participation in production process, which is rather logical development, some forecasts and trends for wine industry are very brave and unexpected. Online deliveries of wine for only a couple of hours with a drone, using internet and special apps for optimization of production process is only a matter of time. It won’t happen this year, but it may be mass phenomenon next… However, it is a fact that China produces high quality wines and creates perfect imitations of French chateaus, and are second in the world in size of their vineyards after Spain.