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 on every shelf in your local Seattle wine shops, but the trend is still growing! I’ll tell you the secret: rosé wines are perfect for barbecues, relaxed snacks, light lunches and family gatherings. What makes these wines so great is that they beg to be drunk and enjoyed, not pondered like their darker counterparts. Here are a couple of great rosé wines to try:
Barnard Griffin Pink by Sangiovese – OMG the color of this wine is amazing with spicy citrus, blood orange, peach and sweet cranberry.
pink cup – 60% Garnacha 30% Viura and 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 Rose – If 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. Farmer Producer Champagne
The champagne-producing producer is actually a bit of a weirdo. Most of the wine grapes from more than 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. Winegrowers 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 better value than the comparable mainstream 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 mark). 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’re in, though some grapes travel a long way to be crushed and fermented (California to New York or even Bordeaux to California!). The best thing about the city’s wineries is that it gives 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 around 280 bottles of wine, which is only around 23 cases. the perfect starter size…
4.Natural Wines
The term “natural wine” is a bit confusing, but since the term equates to the whole food, slow food, and eco-sustainability movement, natural wines are gaining popularity. A natural wine typically takes a hands-off approach to winemaking. Once the grapes are crushed, they are fermented with wild yeasts and the wine is not clarified or filtered. White wines can be cloudy or even have an orange tinge due to a lack of finishing agents to remove yeast and excess colouring. Red wines have skin sediments and dead yeast particles. Of course, sulfur would not be added to a natural wine. Many French and European wines are made in 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 twinkle in your eye:
Zind-Humbrecht 2007 “Pinot d’Alsace” (Alsace, France) – Pinot d’Alsace is sort of a general name for a style of wine made in Alsace, France, that uses free-flowing juice from Pinot noir, Pinot munier, and Pinot gris, has a honey-gold hue, and has flavors of honey, tangerine, lemon zest and this really captivating and 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 which despite a beautiful redesign of the winery still practices very old wine making techniques.
5. Day of the fruit, day of the flower, day of the root and day of the leaf
Have you ever tasted a delicious bottle of wine and then drank the same wine another time and found it didn’t taste as good? Apparently, the moon affects the taste of wine! Observing lunar cycles is a biodynamic agriculture technique that indicates the best times to plant, prune, and harvest. Every day of the month can be related to a fruit day, a root day, a leaf day or a flower day. 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 coordinating their wine tastings on fruit or flower days. So I’ve been casually testing this theory for the past 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, US wine consumption 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 are winning 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 screw caps, including one of my favorite high-end Barossa wines: Elderton. I have to admit, it’s a little shocking to pay $90 for a screw-top wine, but I usually forget about this little detail when I smell the wonderful aromas pouring out of the glass. One saving grace about screw caps: you don’t get corked bottles! (known to affect around 10-15% of corked wines) Here are a couple of no-joke screw-capped wines that are so amazing they’ll make your face hurt:
Plumpjack 2007 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon – McWillians Oakville, CA Drink Now Through 2019
Kay Brothers Block 6 2005 Shiraz – McClaren Vale, South Australia drink now until 2025
8. Low alcohol wines
Randy Dunn of California wine cult Dunn Vineyards has been an advocate of low-alcohol wines (nothing above 14%) since he started his Howell Mountain estate in the Napa foothills. The rest of the new world winemakers are beginning to head down that path when we realize that the complexity of a wine is often overshadowed by the burn of the alcohol. Cult California winemakers like Helen Turley, Sine Que Non and Washington state’s Quilceda Creek had the world on edge about high-alcohol wines in the early 2000s. Skeptics responded immediately and 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 new world winemakers move towards balance.
2002 Dunn Vineyards Cab Sauv Howell Mountain
9. Biodynamic and Eco-Friendly Wines
The turn towards 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 bit strange. Basically, the idea is to observe the natural conditions of the vineyard; the earth, the vine and the microclimate. With these observations, a viticulturist can decide to apply or eliminate natural agents to produce an optimal harvest. Natural agents can be anything from choosing to grow grass between the vineyard rows or sending a herd of goats to the vineyard to remove weeds. In a situation where the soil must be disturbed, compost and organic matter (the weirdest thing involves animal bones) can be added to the topsoil 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 certain 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 higher-quality, age-worthy vintages. In 1994 and 2007 we saw two notable vintages declared to be the future Ports of the century. Producers in Australia and California are noted for obtaining the highest levels of maturity, making them the 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 tasty sweet and savory ports, sherries and wines:
Smith & Woodhouse 1994 Vintage Port
Toro Albala 1979 Gran Reserva PX
Jerez Hidalgo Napoleon Amontillado
R.L. Buller Tawny
RL Buller fine muscatel