What is the future of the wine industry in California? Is it in the famous Napa Valley, or in the expansive vineyards that stretch across the irrigated fields of the Central Valley? What becomes of inexpensive California wine in a world flooded with inexpensive wine from vigorous competitors like Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, and Chile?
--Brent W.
Stephen Rannekleiv: “Review of the Industry: Future of the California Wine Industry”
ReplyDelete“One of the key drivers of the current growth in wine consumption comes from the Millennial generation (born between 1977 and 1994) as it has embraced wine consumption more quickly and enthusiastically than previous generation.” (Stephen Rannekleiv, pg. 4 of 10)
I am part of the Millennial generation and having just come of age I do notice that many of my friends outside of culinary school seem to be very interested in wines and experimenting with new grapes. I feel that it is inevitable that friends from the CIA have an interest in wine and an interest to learn about different wines and all aspects of farming to get to the final product. But, it is interesting to me that my generation has such an impact on where the wine industry is directing itself for the future. I feel that because of the readily available knowledge about wine many people can judge what the best wine for the best value. California fits into this because they have a variety of different price ranges and wine types. While certain parts of California like Napa and Sonoma are able to produce premium wines other parts of California such as the Central Coast are producing high quality wines at a lower price. Consumers want premium wines and are willing to pay a bit more if the perceive the wine as a good value. If California continues to market to the Millennial generation and our incomes increase we will move from value wines to premium wines. Northern California is faced with the problem of not being able to expand because of the price of land and the limited availability of land while Central California will be able to expand its production of high quality low cost wines. The problem with Northern California wineries not being able to expand makes it hard to compare with other countries coming into the premium wine market. Northern California will only be a small percentage of wine consumed in the US if they are not able to expand and the percentage keep growing on importing and consumption from other countries. I believe that it would be a good move for Napa and Sonoma to take the premium wines to another level and focus on making ultra premium wines to differentiate themselves from other premium wine imports. For Central Coast wines I feel that they should focus on having a variety to offer consumers like hand picked, mechanically picked, organic vs. non organic, estate bottled, and other variations. There is no argument that the market for California wines may be a struggle but I feel that US will want to support the California wineries in the end.
Sigrid K.