Diner’s Diary | Future of wine: how China, climate change and technology will transform the industry
Wine expert Robert Joseph points to a future where blends suited to mass consumer tastes replace vintages, glass closures replace cork and screw cap, robots pick grapes, and wine shops offer experiences like modern bookstores
British wine expert Robert Joseph complains that the wine industry is changing at the speed of a snail. The author of several books, founder of the International Wine Challenge and producer asked aloud this week why winemakers and merchants won’t move with the times.
He was giving a talk at Vinexpo Hong Kong, a major trade fair, called “The Future of Wine Has Changed”.
With technology, climate change and consumer habits fast evolving, wine cannot be made, packaged, marketed and sold the way it is now, he says. For an hour and a half, Joseph outlined foreseeable trends that could disrupt the wine industry, and which he believes should be embraced now.
China wine market: millennial drinkers are buying online and moving away from established brands, Vinexpo hears
Joseph sees a big disconnect between the technical aspects of wine that a rarefied group feels qualified to grade, and the reality that the vast majority of drinkers don’t care about appellation and fermentation, and just want to drink wines they think taste good.
His forecasts can be broken down into four main areas.
1. Climate change
He says that while US President Donald Trump and others may dispute global warming, climate change evidence is obvious; from his own experience, in the 1970s to 1980s grapes in Burgundy had 9 per cent residual sugar, while now the level is 13 per cent.