The Future of Wine
| The global wine map could look very different in 2058, according to Berry Bros & Rudd. The amount of vineyard land in England could potentially rival that of France by 2058. What’s more, if English sparkling wine becomes popular with drinkers and has sufficient demand to bring prices down, it might one day rival Champagne. Pictured to the right is an English Vineyard. | 
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If other Berry predictions come to pass by 2058, the wine bottle will become virtually obsolete, replaced by plastic or reinforced cardboard containers. And only a very small fraction of wine will continue to be corked, with screw caps becoming the norm. The most obvious visible change could be the manner in which wine is labelled and marketed. Country and grape-specific derivations such as Shiraz or Merlot could disappear in favour of brand-oriented versions as spirits producers and supermarkets become major wine owners.
"In 50 years, consumers will ask for wine by the brand name or flavour and won't know, or care, where it has come from," says Jasper Morris, responsible for buying Berry's Burgundy wines. And regarding India specifically, Berrys believes, if the increasing number of vineyards planted in parts of western and southern India are any indication, India will soon be taken seriously as a fine wine-growing nation.
Comments
Dear Ed., sounds awful- and this comes from Berry Bros.& Ruud, UK's Wine Merchants of the Year, trading from the same location for over 300 years and with a Georgian Cellar to boot!! Makes me glad that I, for one, will not be around to see that day.
While I woulsd certainly agree with the phasing out of CORK and definite changes in BOTTLING the rest of the Berry predictions sound just too dire. Wine remains one of the FINAL FRONTIERS - the embodiment of grace, of savoir faire, living, loving, laughing....cardboard packs, forsooth, wine by the brand name/flavor and not grape/country,Old Blighty to dominate sparkling wines...too awful to contemplate!!
In all this SCI-FI scenario let's take a look at TESCOS - the Wal-Mart of the UK - Britains leading Grocer and now, along with Waitrose, it's foremost WINE RETAILER. Tescos which, today, retails about 250 labels and has about 30% market share, has invested in a selection called TESCOS FINEST, which are the creme de la creme of these labels. They work with 15 leading Wine Makers, globally, to produce these 85 Brands which now constitute 2 out of every 5 bottles of wine sold by Tescos and comprise 85 million GBP out of totall sales of 1.2 billion GBP and they certainly do not neglect to mention the varietal/s, vintage and country of origin!! Dumbing down Wine is certainly not the way forward.
Finally, will someone please shed some light on the REAL INDIAN WINE INDUSTRY because every foreigner who has an opinion, has a different one!! If what we produce is such undrinkable plonk then where on earth do 22.5 million litres of Wine go??