‘The industry has been lazy’: calls for affordability and innovation in wine

At the DB Conference in London, trade leaders argued that the future of wine depends on making the best more accessible, rethinking how value is delivered and adapting to changing consumer expectations. Price, health and storytelling emerged as key themes for how the sector must evolve.

Speaking at the DB Conference held at the Science Gallery in London, Simon Farr, chairman of Cru World Wine, warned that the wine trade must address the gap between price and value if it is to thrive. “If we don’t have value, we won’t be rewarded for it,” he said. “I hope that we’ll get to a place where for the main body of wine, the price that the consumer pays reflects the actual value of getting it to that point.”

Farr pointed out that the market has fundamentally changed. “Wealth is becoming global. The biggest thing that’s happened to the trade in the last 50 years is the rest of the world getting richer. Wine is going to get more expensive. Scarcity is a structural thing, not a cyclical thing.”

Yet he argued that increased accessibility is also part of the future. “We can now taste Romanée-Conti without even buying a tenth of the bottle. The accessibility of the best is increasingly something that a lot more people can participate in, as I think it should be.”

Price pressures and shifting models

Patrick Schmitt MW, editor in chief of the drinks business, raised the issue of how rising prices have outpaced consumer expectations. Nick Martin, MD of Wine Owners, acknowledged the tension. “Maybe there’s more work to be done trying to ensure that wine is reasonably affordable within a hospitality setting.”

Farr added that structural issues were threatening affordability at the base of the market. “If you look at the largest vineyard area in the world, which is Europe, and you took away the subsidies, I’m not sure those vineyards would be in production in five years’ time. To make an affordable bottle of wine is a real challenge. We are already seeing an erosion of that market. If we extrapolate this, we are looking at a much smaller category and we need to find ways to make it accessible.”

He also pointed out the rise of new retail models. “The hybrid wine store is apparently nearly 50% of the market, and these are environments where you can enjoy good wine at a reasonable price. And I think that is going to put pressure on the restaurant industry.”

Health, moderation and sustainability

Beyond price, Farr argued that changing attitudes to health must also shape the industry’s future. “I think we are all realising that we need to be a lot healthier than we were and it doesn’t actually make sense to drink a huge amount. I actually think the industry is much more viable and sustainable, right through the value chain, if we think in terms of quality and experience rather than in terms of volume.”

Martin warned that regulatory headwinds are growing. “There are various challenges in the US, in terms of the temperance movement and what the surgeon general decides is a safe unit of alcohol, which is zero, apparently, at the moment.”

The storytelling challenge

Farr rejected the idea that the product itself needs radical change. Instead, he called for better communication. “I think the issue is not with the product but the energy we put into compellingly telling the stories. There’s an awful lot of great wine out there that doesn’t have the right points, or it didn’t sell easily last week and we are too lazy as a trade. We’ve got to realise that there is a huge tail of products, a lot of which is much better value and a much better experience and we need to embrace that choice and see it as an enabler of added value.”

He argued that storytelling must be central to growth. “The basis of every sale is an argument. We really ought to be putting more effort into telling the stories of the wine the customers should be buying, rather than just peddling the same old.”

Wine at a crossroads

As affordability tightens, health expectations shift and consumers demand more authentic engagement, the trade faces a clear crossroads. Farr concluded: “People want to put their phones down and re-engage with people and historically, wine has been a bit of that solution.”

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