Five New Year's Wishes for Wine

None come easily. All would be of great help for wine and wine drinkers.

Some years are better than others. On the whole, 2023, disappointed me. To begin with, the combination of numbers in the year 2-0-2-3 simply isn’t aesthetically pleasing. That bothered me from the outset. But slightly more importantly, I didn’t like the apparent increase in partisanship that seemed to emerge in anticipation of the 2024 election year. Even more important, I was shocked and stayed shocked throughout the fourth quarter by events in Israel.

Where my industry was concerned, it seemed to me that bad news and disappointment (lower sales, concern that younger Americans still did not take to wine the way they should, cannabis cannibalizing a greater share of the inebriation pie, and an industry expressing too little concern for the events in the Middle East) was in constant supply.

With this in mind and with 2-0-2-4 having a much nicer ring to it, It’s important that I try to do my part to make next year better for my wine industry. While “Wishing” rarely makes the difference between improvement and impairment, it isn’t the worst way to try to make a difference. So, with that in mind, the following are my WISHES for the wine industry in 2024.

wish #1
AN INDUSTRY-WIDE EFFORT TO PUSH BACK ON THE MESSAGING THAT ALL ALCOHOL IN ALL SHAPES, SIZES AND AMOUNTS IS BAD
I had the occasion several times in 2023 to point to efforts by influential health authorities and organizations to demean any consumption of alcohol. We saw Canada move toward recommending no more than two drinks per week and the U.S. comes out with its alcohol consumption recommendations in 2025. Notably, the administrator in charge of this effort has noted Canada’s descent into anti-alcohol recommendations. My wish is that the wine industry can come together to fund and carry out an organized effort to push back against those individuals and organizations that would demonize wine, recommend we drink far less of it, and consistently ignore the benefits of wine consumption. No one else is going to do this for the wine industry. More importantly, not doing this will cost the wine industry—producers, wholesalers, importers, and retailers—dearly.

wish #2
AN INFLUX OF YOUNG REFORMERS
It will come as no surprise that most of those folks who are most influential within the various trade organizations tend to be older and representatives of the larger wine industry entities. If the most obviously necessary reforms are going to come to wine, those advocating on behalf of the industry need to be younger representatives of the smaller entities that dominate the wine industry. I’m thinking of the state-based winery associations, the regional trade associations, and the national trade associations. This is where a push for changes in the wine industry originates. We know that the vast majority of folks in the wine industry believe that a legally mandated three-tier system is not merely archaic but a serious burden on the vast majority of producers. And it’s true that the younger that industry participant is, the better they understand why reform to this system is necessary. My wish is that more, younger people in the wine industry will push their way into the trade organizations, onto the Boards of Directors and lead the charge for change.