Italian Wine Podcast Episode 457: The benefits of a more diverse wine industry.

Audio from Manjaval Janjo's wine2wine 2020 session, with moderator Paul Caputo.

For the last 10 years or so, going as far back as the banking crisis of 2008, most sectors of the wine trade have suffered. Sectors which are seen to excel are more an exception, rather than the rule. Prosecco has been a phenomenal success, but even that curve is beginning to flatten. The wine industry has long wrestled with the challenges of re-inventing, modernising, and promoting itself to a younger audience, while our cousins in the spirits and beer industries have easily embraced and adapted to the modern society in which we all trade. Of course, it’s easy to cite beer’s relative ease of production when compared to wine, and spirit’s versatility as a cocktail ingredient; but are we as an industry missing the bigger picture? Studies from the US have shown that younger audiences continue to view wine as “dad’s drink” as well as being “uncool”. I argue that we can no longer afford to keep wine as an elite club and must find a way to diversify our target audience. We only need to look to the success of other alcoholic beverage categories, to see the correlation between sales figures and their marketing campaigns.

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