Winecast 67: Felicity Carter on what wine drinkers want

Felicity Carter: We don’t know what’s going to happen next in wine — “all is in chaos.”

Felicity Carter is the former editor of Meininger’s Wine Business International, one of the industry’s leading trades, and is currently the executive editor of the The Drop, a consumer wine newsletter. Which means she probably knows more about the wine business than many of the so-called experts. (And, in the interest of transparency, I have written for her at both sites.)

One example of how Felicity sees things others don’t: Her take on consumer wine trends. Two decades ago, Yellow Tail’s slightly sweet red wines were all the rage. Today, the trendy wine style is the slightly sweet red blend. In other words, the same wine in different packaging.

We talked about a variety of consumer wine trends and even got in a shot at wine writers. The podcast, which is about 13 minutes long and takes up 9 megabytes — download or stream it here (and ignore what seems to be me shouting):

• Consumers seem to be split into two groups. Some of us are looking for more interesting wines, as well as sustainable and natural wines (which makes this the longest natural wine discussion in blog history). Others, meanwhile, still want cabernet sauvignon, rose, and sparkling wine. In addition, low alcohol and “healthy wine” seems to be gaining attention.

• Climate change is starting to affect wine production, so how and where we get the wines we want is becoming more difficult to figure out.

• Most foreign producers want to sell their wine in the U.S. which help fill shelves here. Why do they want that? Because we’re willing to pay higher prices than everyone else.

• Many of the wine trends we hear about come from wine writers trying to impress and aren’t necessarily actual trends. When’s the last time any of us had a blaufrankisch?

• And shiraz is pronounced, “sheer-azz” Down Under.