– Local winery Graveyard Vineyards has released their results from the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, the largest competition of North American Wines. Over 6,000 wines were in competition this year, and Graveyard’s 2019 Tannat received Best of Class, 2019 Perfect Pour and 2020 Gruner Veltliner both received gold.
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When White Claw and other hard seltzers scratched their way onto the scene in 2016, the wine industry was thrown on its heels. The new category exploded almost overnight, growing exponentially year-over year, unabated by even the pandemic.
What was a $41 million industry five years ago is projected to exceed $2.5 billion in 2021, and it may reach $14.5 billion by 2027. That’s still nowhere near wine’s more than $330 billion annual impact, but every bite hurts.
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Hard seltzer appeals to younger generations especially, due to its lower alcohol and calorie content, which aligns with the modern wellness zeitgeist. Suddenly, wine, long considered the healthier alternative to booze and even beer, not to mention a critical component of the purported life-extending “Mediterranean diet,” didn’t look so fit.
Better for You Wines Are The Hot Trend in 2021
Better for you wines are the hot trend of 2021. The moniker for these health-marketed wines hasn t yet been universally agreed upon, and Nielsen doesn t yet track this as a category. But big wine companies and big grocery chains are buying into the idea, and there will be several significant launches in the months to come.
Broadly speaking, this new category of better for you wines shares two characteristics. First, they are lower in alcohol, through mechanical means of alcohol reduction. Second, they have zero residual sugar. Thus a naturally low-alcohol German Riesling made from organic grapes and natural yeast would not qualify if it has RS, while a wine that has been stripped to its component parts and reassembled at 10% alcohol would.