The 10 hottest trends in wine




Do you want to know what is fashionable in the world of wine? Here are the top 10 trends:

1. Rosé wine
2. Grower’s Champagne
3. Metropolitan Wineries
4. Natural wines
5. Fruit Days, Root Days…
6. More wine drinkers in America
7. Screw caps and box wines
8. Low-alcohol wine
9. Biodynamic and organic wine
10. Dessert wine, port and sherry

1. Rosé wines

Rosé wines are all over the shelves of local Seattle wine stores, but the trend is still growing! I’ll let you in on the secret: rosé wines are perfect for barbecues, leisurely potlucks, light lunches, and family gatherings. What makes these wines so great is that they beg to be drunk and enjoyed, not meditated upon like their darker counterparts. Here are a couple of great rosé wines to try:

Barnard Griffin Rose of SangioveseOMG the color of this wine is amazing with tangy citrus, blood orange, peach and sweet cranberry.

pink cup60% garnacha 30% viura 10% tempranillo wow this one smells so fruity and fabulous with a backbone of a few more earthy notes than the Barnard Griffin, still spicy and fun

K Vintners Syrah de RoseIf you’re looking for a crazy rose experience, syrah tastes so much meatier than a rosé wine, I find it smells like strawberries and salumi at the same time, super crazy!

2. Champagne Producer Farmer

The champagne producer producer is actually a bit weird. Most of the wine grapes from over 15,000 Champagne producers go directly to the great Champagne houses like Moet & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot. Originally this was due to the cost of the champagne production method, but with the help of advancing technology we will see more “recoltant-manipulant (RM)” or producer champagnes on the market. Wine growers have greater power and incentives to ensure that the grapes they select for their own wines are at the best possible level of ripeness. You can often find producer champagne for a better value than the comparable major brand. If you’re interested in grower’s champagne, look for the letters “RM” (harvester handling) on the label, indicating that it is a grower-producer. You can also search for CM (cooperative manipulators) but not NM (businessman manipulating) or MA (buyer’s brand). I will list some of my favorites below.

Egly-Ouriet Brut Tradition Grand Cru (NV)

Veuve Fourny & Fils Rose Premier Cru Vertus Brut (NV)

2002 Launois Brut Blanc de Blancs Vintage Champagne

Collard-Picard “Cuvée Selection” Brut Champagne

3. Metropolitan Wineries

Brooklyn Winery, City Winery (Manhattan), and Crushpad in San Francisco are making a big impact in cities across the country. Metropolitan wineries often source their grapes from the state they are in, although some grapes travel a long way to be crushed and fermented (California to New York or even Bordeaux to California!). The great thing about the city’s wineries is that they give the public more exposure to the winemaking process. You can literally make your own wine label! Do you want to make wine? Keep in mind that a typical wine barrel will produce about 280 bottles of wine, which is only about 23 cases. the perfect starting size…

4. Natural wines

The term “natural wine” is a bit confusing, but since the term resembles the whole food, slow food, and eco-sustainability movement, natural wines are gaining popularity. A natural wine generally has a hands-off approach to winemaking. Once the grapes are crushed, fermentation is carried out with wild yeasts and the wine is not clarified or filtered. White wines can be cloudy or even have an orange tint due to a lack of finishing agents to remove yeast and excess coloring. Red wines have sediment from skins and particles of dead yeast. Of course, sulfur would not be added to a natural wine. Many French and European wines are made this “natural” way and some are wonderful, but many have that funky old baby diaper aroma that I like to describe as poogy (half splooge, half poop). Despite all the pooge out there… there are also natural wines that will put a sparkle in your eyes:

Zind-Humbrecht 2007 “Pinot d’Alsace” (Alsace, France) – Pinot d’Alsace is a kind of umbrella name for a style of wine made in Alsace, France, that uses free-flowing Pinot Noir, Pinot Munier, and Pinot Gris juices, has a honey-gold hue, and has flavors of honey, mandarin, lemon zest and this really captivating, intense fresh green crunch that reminds me of biting into a celery stick.

2000 (or 2002!) López de Heredia “Viña Bosconia” Reserva Rioja (Rioja Alta, Spain) – Possibly the oldest winery in Rioja that despite a beautiful redesign of the winery still practices very old winemaking techniques.

5. Fruit day, flower day, root day and leaf day

Have you ever tried a delicious bottle of wine and then drank the same wine another time and found that it didn’t taste as good? Apparently the moon affects the taste of the wine! The observation of lunar cycles is a biodynamic farming technique that indicates the best times to plant, prune and harvest. Every day of the month can be related to a day of fruits, a day of roots, a day of leaves or a day of flowers. For example, a root day is a good day to prune plants or get a haircut. In the UK, a supermarket chain tested this theory by timing their wine tastings on fruit or flower days. So I’ve been casually testing this theory for the last 6 months and wine tastes best on fruit and flower days! Don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself!

6. More wine drinkers in America

Wine consumption and wine drinkers are on the rise in the United States! According to Trade Data & Analysis (TDA), the United States is pulling out the corkscrew and drinking more wine. Since 2004, wine consumption in the US has increased by 15%. Although consumption is relatively low, 10 liters per person (only 12 bottles per person per year), we cannot deny that with a population of 300 million, that is almost 4 billion bottles of wine per year. Compared to the UK (which drinks almost 20 liters per person per year), they still have around 1.5 billion bottles a year. we’re winners wine drinkers… wow!

7. Screw caps and box wine

Screw cap wines try harder. We Americans are fickle, we associate screw caps with low value wines, however that may not always be the case! In Australia, most wineries have fully converted to screwcaps, including one of my favorite high-end barossa wines: Elderton. I must admit, it’s a bit shocking to pay $90 for a screw-top wine, but I usually forget about this little detail when I smell the fantastic aromas pouring out of the glass. One saving grace about screw caps: you don’t get corked bottles! (which is known to affect about 10-15% of corked wines) Here are a couple of no joke screw cap wines that are so awesome they’ll make your face hurt:

Plumpjack 2007 Reserve Cabernet SauvignonMcWillians Oakville, CA Drink Now Through 2019

Kay Brothers Block 6 2005 ShirazMcClaren Vale, South Australia drink now until 2025

8. Low-alcohol wines

Randy Dunn of California cult wine Dunn Vineyards has been an advocate for low-alcohol wines (nothing over 14%) since he started his Howell Mountain estate in the foothills of Napa. The rest of the new world winemakers are beginning to head down that path as we realize that the complexity of a wine is often overshadowed by the burn of the alcohol. Cult California winemakers like Washington state’s Helen Turley, Sine Que Non and Quilceda Creek had the world on edge over high-alcohol wines in the early 2000s. they pointed out how the alcohol levels were so high that the wines would “fool” wine critics with their overwhelming oily feel based on the viscosity of the alcohol. We will see wines with less alcohol as winemakers in the new world move towards balance.

2002 Dunn Vineyards Cab Sauv Mountain Howell

9. Biodynamic and Eco-Friendly Wines

The turn to biodynamic agriculture began as a protest against the mass-market agricultural science of the 1950s. The idea of ​​biodynamics is relatively simple, but in practice it can be very complicated and even a little strange. Basically, the idea is to observe the natural conditions of the vineyard; the land, the vine and the microclimate. With these observations, a viticulturist can decide to apply or remove natural agents to produce an optimal harvest. Natural agents can be anything from choosing to grow grass between the rows of vineyards or sending a herd of goats into the vineyard to remove weeds. In a situation where the soil needs to be disturbed, compost and organic matter (the rarest involves animal bones) can be added to the top layer of soil to affect the soil’s pH balance or salinity. Recently, the US Wine Institute has implemented a third-party certified sustainable wine program. Originally, the program was based on self-assessment, but now, with third-party approval, it will be more true to put the “sustainable” label on wines.

10. Dessert wine, port and sherry – STICKERS!

Port, sherry, and dessert wine have come a long way since our mothers and grandmothers drank their sherry. In Portugal, Port houses have revamped their winemaking methods and facilities to produce vintages of higher quality and worthy of aging. In 1994 and 2007 we saw two notable vintages declared to be the future Ports of the century. Producers in Australia and California excel at achieving the highest levels of ripeness, making them perfect candidates for international (sticky) dessert wine production. Since fortified wines like sherry and port keep for up to a month, they make great late-night tapas. here is my list of savory sweet and savory ports, sherries and wines:

Smith & Woodhouse 1994 Vintage Port

Bull Albala 1979 Grand Reserve PX

Sherry Hidalgo Napoleon Amontillado

R. L. Buller Tawny

RL Buller Fine Muscat

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