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As much as I’d like to participate in this whole 10th anniversary shindig, I’ve only been here a few months. What could I possibly write that would be relevant? “Oh, I love the way the offices have been updated since this summer, from dingy gray…to slightly dingier gray.”

I suppose I could write about the last decade in wine. After all, I was writing about wine at the inception of this magazine (though for its dyspeptic older brother, the Phoenix), so I’ve seen that history up close, albeit through a glass, darkly. And sometimes, from beneath a pile of bottles.

But really, who cares? The previous ten years of wine have mostly passed down our gullets and…well, best to discontinue this analogy. Better, I think, to talk about the future. What’s now? What’s next? What’s after that? The best part is, no one’s going to read this ten years from now and exclaim, “wow, that Thor guy…what an idiot!”

Prices are going up. Oh, I know, like that’s news. But things are worse now than they’ve been in a long while, thanks to the Monopoly money we call the U.S. dollar. Many foreign producers and their importers have bargained, shaved and scrimped for the last few years, trying to hold increases to tolerable levels, but they’re now facing a choice: hike prices or go out of business. And we’re seeing the results, with the $12 bargains of just two years ago frequently well into the twenties, and proportional increases right up the price scale. The worst news of all is that it’s not going to get better anytime soon, barring some unforeseen currency event.

Thankfully, domestic producers have responded by holding the line on prices, turning what wasn’t always a favorable value equation into a marketing and sales opportunity. Right?

Um, no.

Selection is going down. Distributors – the middle tier of the legally-mandated three-tier system between alcohol producer and consumer – are rapidly consolidating, which means fewer buyers for wines both foreign and domestic, which means fewer names on the shelves as these ever-expanding companies pay less attention to small-production wineries in favor of multi-thousand-case behemoths. If a bottle falls in the forest…

Or is it? In response to this consolidation, tiny importer/distributors with defined niches and vinous points of view are sprouting up like (really tasty) weeds. They’ll never place bottles in the local keg mart, but they do get the attention of passionate retailers and restaurateurs who have been watching the aforementioned consolidations with dismay. And so, as ever, the key for the consumer is recognizing which retailers and restaurant wine buyers actually care what comes through their doors. There are more than one might think (though fewer than one might prefer).

Sweet is the new dry. It wasn’t always. Americans repeatedly insisted that they didn’t like sweet wines, while their drinks of choice – white zinfandel, California chardonnay, and before that Asti Spumante – belied that claim. There used to be a downscale image to anything that didn’t self-identify as dry.

Those days are over. It’s true that an ever-increasing percentage of allegedly dry wines are frequently far from it – New Zealand sauvignon blanc, much domestic pinot noir, Australian shiraz, pinot grigio, Champagne – but that’s simply a natural response to the sugar-loving American market. What’s more interesting is how wines that have traditionally been off-dry or sweet have shed their déclassé image. German riesling (which is now practically hip in some circles), sparkling wines like Bugey Cerdon or brachetto d’Acqui, the great Loire Valley chenin blancs of Vouvray and Montlouis…these are wines with balance, elegance and food compatibility that is, at long last, being embraced by more than a few dedicated wine geeks.

You can only hope to contain it. The last few years have seen huge inroads by alternative (to cork) closures, including screwcaps, synthetic corks, crown caps, and even glass plugs. We’ve long had bags in boxes and jugs, though the latter have moved slightly more upscale, and we also have both cans and quasi-Champagne that comes in an adult version of a sippy container. This is a trend that will accelerate and expand, thanks to global warming.

(Huh?)

While the carbon-savvy can find much of concern in the production and transport of wine, one of the biggest offenders is the glass bottle. We don’t have a useful and marketable alternative for ageable wines yet, but most wine is purchased and consumed fairly quickly. Why does it have to be in the exact same glass bottle? Look for a few enviro-conscious wineries to start moving down a different road in the near future.

Wine writers will strike it rich. Hey, it’s worth a shot, right? “Wow, that Thor guy…what an idiot!”

(First published in stuff@night, 2007.)