The broad availability of United States wine in Sweden’s wine retailer

Recently I produced a post about wine availability in Sweden, pointing out that wine sales are not actually as restricted as is sometimes claimed: The availability of older wine vintages in a wine monopoly. There I noted that some of the currently available vintages in Sweden’s wine monopoly (called Systembolaget) date back to last century. Another way to look at the same issue, which may be of interest to many of my readers, is to consider the extent to which United States wine is available in that same wine monopoly. *

The obvious place to start is with simply how many different wines are currently listed in the Systembolaget catalog. It looks like this first figure.

Well, 672 wines is not necessarily a big deal to an American, but for a small European country it is pretty darned good. As expected, California (= “Kalifornien” in Swedish] dominates, with more than 80% of the wines, but Washington and Oregon also get a look in.

There are 471 red wines, 176 white wines, 12 rosé, 5 sparkling, 6 flavored / fruit wines, and 2 are mixed boxes. Of these wines, 112 are in the standard store assortment (ie. they should be in most stores, and their local supply is renewed), 197 are in the temporary assortment (ie. their supply is limited, and is not necessarily renewed), and 360 need to be ordered (ie. they are not in the shops, but will be delivered to your local store upon request to the importer).

Of these wines, 526 are in standard glass bottles, 88 are in lighter bottles, 28 are boxed wines (with plastic tap), 13 are in PET bottles, 11 are in cans, 5 are in cardboard packaging, and 1 is in a pouch. If you want even more details: 59 of the bottles have a screw cap, and 4 have a synthetic cork.

The wines are mostly relatively recent vintages, as shown in the next figure, but they do go back to 2009. The alcohol content is stated to vary from 7% to 19%.

In US dollars, the wines vary from $3.50 (187 ml) to $4.60 (250 ml) to $5.90 (375 ml) to $7.90 (750 ml), all the way up to $10,000. There are 180 wines (27%) retailing at $20 or less. The six most expensive packages are as shown next (NB: $US1 = 10 kronor). Note that the first item refers to a mixed box of 3 bottles (ie. $4,000 each bottle).

There are many different grape varieties available, as listed in the next figure. (Note that some of the names are actually synonyms).

If we consider what foods the wines are claimed to be suitable to accompany, then the list looks like the following figure. Note that Nut (“nöt” in Swedish) = Beef.

Finally, getting technical, if we define Lower carbon footprint as 0—400 g CO2e/l (carbon dioxide equivalents per liter) then 55 wines are stated to qualify; and we define Average carbon footprint as 401—650 g CO2e/l then 102 wines are stated to qualify; and Higher carbon footprint is 651—1475 g CO2e/l then 511 wines are stated to qualify.

So, all in all, I think that the Swedes do quite well in terms of wine from the United States of America. How long this lasts will be determined by how the current tariff ruckus is resolved, of course.

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* The U.S. three-tier system was originally designed to prevent monopolies, indicating that Americans do indeed object to this business arrangement.

Issues when aggregating wine scores into an average

Wine competitions, and many web sites, involve summing assessors’ scores into a consensus “average” score for each wine. However, as an example for three assessors, the scores of:

5,5,5 have the same sum / average as 0,5,10

However, the former situation indicates complete agreement among the three assessors about the quality of the wine, while the latter situation is no different from random quality scores. Surely this difference matters?

This contradictory situation has long been ignored. Obviously, this issue does not matter when looking at a single critic’s review in a magazine, for example. However, it may matter enormously at sites like CellarTracker, which claim to represent the consensus of wine quality among many people. However, such sites seem not to have cared about this issue at all.

Recently, Jeffrey Bodington has looked at this situation in detail:

Wine Stars & Bars: the combinatorics of critic consensus
AAWE Working Paper no. 284

Here, I will summarize some of his ideas.

First, however, let’s make the situation clear. The following lines indicate increasing agreement around the same average of 5, with 3 assessor scores having a maximum of 10 each:

0,5,10
1,5,9
2,5,8
3,5,7
4,5,6
5,5,5

Furthermore, there can also be clusters of scores (e.g. some scores indicating poor quality and some indicating good quality, with nothing in between), such as:

1,7,7
3,6,6

The basic mathematical issues here are that (potentially) many billions of combinations of scores have the same sum (and therefore average), and that uncertain ratings can have many different sums. Mathematically, an observed wine rating is one draw from a (latent) distribution of all possible ratings that is both wine-specific and judge-specific.

The further practical issues for wine assessments are that: (i) sample sizes (number of assessments) are often small (especially in competitions); (ii) some wine judges are more reliable or consistent assessors than are others; and (iii) clusters of scores can happen, for example in the case of stylistically distinctive wines. These three situations mean that the issue discussed by Bodington can potentially have a big effect.

Bodington proceeds mathematically:

A weighted sum of judges’ wine ratings is proposed and tested that (1) recognizes the uncertainty about a sum and (2) minimizes the disagreement among judges about that sum. A simple index of dispersion is [also] proposed and tested that measures a continuum from perfect consensus (dispersion = 1), to ratings that are indistinguishable from random assignments (dispersion = 0), and then to distant clusters of ratings when groups of judges disagree (dispersion is negative).

To make sense of this for you, he then illustrates his ideas with a straightforward example. This involves the 10 white wines from the 1976 Judgment of Paris comparative tasting of French and American wines, with 9 assessors per wine. The sums of the blind scores are shown in the graph above. The blue bars indicate the distribution of all possible sums of 9 scores of 20 each (ie. a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 180). The black lines represent the sums for each of the 10 Judgment wines (as labeled). As shown:

... the sums of points for the top two white wines, Chateau Montelena and Meursault Charmes are calculated to be the same at 130.5. The respective ranges of points assigned to those two wines were 3.0-to-18.5 and 12.0-to-16.0 ...

So, the overall mathematical assessment is the same for the two wines, but there is clearly much more consensus among the judges for Meursault Charmes (scores 12-to-16 out of 20) than for Chateau Montelena (scores 3-to-18.5). Bodington thinks that this difference should be dealt with, and that is the purpose of his weighted sum and his index of dispersion.

These calculations are shown in the next figure, with the weighted sum shown horizontally (ie. increasing assessed quality of the wine) and the index of dispersion vertically (ie. increasing agreement among the assessors), and each wine represented by a labeled point.

Bodington notes:

Results for the dispersion index show that none are close to zero so they do not appear to be random results, and none are negative to indicate distant clusters. The weighted sum of points for highest-scoring Chateau Montelena has the second lowest dispersion index of any wine and the [other] wine Meursault Charmes has the highest index of any wine. Considering that finding, does it make sense to conclude that Montelena was better than Charmes?

In other words, the consistent critic judgements for Meursault Charmes should outweigh the relatively inconsistent ones for Chateau Montelena. This can be interpreted as indicating the “best” white wine at the Judgment of Paris.

This sort of situation can have a strong effect any time there is a relatively small number of wine assessments.

The availability of older wine vintages in a wine monopoly

Sweden has a single government-owned (but not controlled) alcohol retail monopoly, called Systembolaget (although Swedes often refer to it as Systemet = The System). Many non-Swedes see this as an affront to free trade, and that it obviously must be economically inefficient (e.g. “high taxes are also an issue in the Nordics, where sales are stifled by everything having to be sold through monopolies”).

I have written about this situation quite a number of times, pointing out that the situation is not really the way it is painted by outsiders (ie. sales are not stifled). For example:

• Which countries are dominated by only a few alcohol suppliers?
• Why are there wine monopolies in Scandinavia?
• The WHO is making a mistake about state-owned alcohol retailers

I have also written about the availability of wine under these circumstances, as many people seem to think that it must be restricted in some way, which it is not:

• Wine monopolies, and the availability of wine
• The availability of wines in government-owned retail monopolies
• The availability of older wine vintages in Sweden?

It is the topic of this latter post, about older vintages, that is of interest here. In that post, from 2024, I listed all of the available Australian wines at least 5 years since vintage, available in Systembolaget. There were 24 of them, vintage dated 2013–2018. This seems to me is not too bad a selection, from a single source country, and all of the wines should still be quite drinkable. However, people used to specialist wine shops might find that this selection is nothing to write home about, especially in countries like the USA, where specialty retail is expected.

Today I am going to look at all of the available wines vintage–dated prior to 2000 (ie. last century), irrespective of their country of origin.

The table below shows the results of my searching in the Systembolaget database. These are all table wines, not fortified wines (which can be much older, as their higher alcohol content preserves them). I have shown the Swedish (SEK) price for each wine. Note that US$ 1 ≈ 10 SEK, which makes the conversion easy.

So, there are 7 red wines and 6 whites. This may not impress connoisseurs; but for the Swedish national retail chain, where almost all of the alcohol sold is budget stuff for everyday drinking (the classic “wines for the table not the cellar”), it is as good as I would expect.

All of these wines should still be quite drinkable.

For example, the four Moulin Touchais wines come from a winery that specializes in a semi-sweet wine of great age; so many other old vintages have been available as well (see: Tasting the magical sweet wines of Moulin Touchais through the ages).

Similarly, the current release of the Xavier Vignon wine was not bottled until 2022, and it is widely available elsewhere (Wine-Searcher).

Also, although the company no longer exists, Richmond Grove long specialized in limited releases of its Watervale Riesling (e.g. in 2012 Chris Shanahan noted that the winery offered Watervale Rieslings from 1996 to 2011).

The Luis Pato wine was tasted in 2023 / 2024 by Wine Anorak, and given a score of 95/100.

A perusal of the Wine-Searcher database shows that the Giacomo Borgogno wine is widely available elsewhere. All of the other wines are also still available elsewhere (e.g. Bodegas Campillo, Fontanafredda, Jean Leon, Mastroberardino, Vajo dei Masi).

These wines are rarely actually in any of the Systembolaget retail stores, but are still in the importer / distributor warehouse. They can be ordered through the Systembolaget online order system, and arrive a few days later at my local store, where I collect (and pay for) them. This system works quite well.

Recent patterns in world vineyard area, wine production and wine consumption

The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) recently released its annual world industry summary: State of the World Vine and Wine Sector in 2024. There are always parts of it that seem of particular interest, and I will look at three of these here.

Let’s start with recent changes in the world’s vineyard surface area, which are shown in the first graph (taken from the report).

As you can see, this has been decreasing for quite some time, from a high in 2003. It is currently c. 90% of its recent high. (Note that the OIV graphs never have zero as their bottom axis, which looks somewhat misleading to me.) As has been repeatedly noted in the wine-industry literature, vineyard area is much larger than can be supported by the current wine consumption, and so the decrease in area will presumably continue for quite some time yet.

Obviously, wine production is related to vineyard surface area. However, production has not shown a similar continuous decline, as illustrated in the next graph (taken from the report).

The graph shows that, since 2003, global wine production has varied up and down around an average of c. 270 mhl (million hectoliters). This sounds like a classic case of over-production (the same amount of wine coming from a decreasing area). This has lead to a dramatic decrease in production over the past couple of years, so that 2024 production was only c. 75% of the 2018 peak (and that peak was the same as for 2003).

Note also that the 2022 production was c. 90% of the 2003 high, as would be expected from the decreasing vineyard surface area; so, we need to look for another cause of the decline since 2022. The most obvious place to look for this would be wine consumption, as illustrated in the next graph (taken from the report).

This shows that the recent high-point for consumption was during the decade from 2007 to 2017, when it varied around 245 mhl (million hectoliters). Since then, it has been all downhill, so that the 2024 level was c. 90% of the 2017 high.

More importantly, there has been a dramatic decrease in consumption since 2021. So, the decrease by the producers has clearly been a response to the behaviour of the consumers. Notably, it has been reported that global wine consumption is back to 1961 levels, which should be a wake-up call for the industry.

We can also consider which countries have been contributing to these patterns. Here, 51% of the world vineyard area lies in just five countries: Spain, France, China, Italy and Turkey (in decreasing order). So, these are the ones that will be most affected by the decline in the wine industry.

The pattern for production as reported by the OIV excludes juices and musts, and so wine production does not follow the vineyard area pattern. Here, 58% of the world wine production comes from just four countries: Italy, France, Spain and the USA (in decreasing order).

Wine consumption, on the other hand, is somewhat different. Here, 51% of wine consumption occurs in five countries: the USA, France, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. This pattern is obviously related to population size. However, France and Italy do produce a lot of wine because their people drink a lot of it. The same cannot be said of the USA, Germany and the UK, which need to import a lot of the stuff.

This importation fact is currently riling the President of the USA, who wants to tax the imported booze even more than it has been in the past (How American alcohol importers are adapting to the tariff rollercoaster). Indeed, in the above graph we can look at US wine consumption over the past century or so (from: the Wine Institute). There was a notable dip during the second half of the 1980s, but otherwise it has continued upwards until 2022 (and 2023 also continued downwards — not shown).

Apparently, the President’s idea is that the USA can produce all of its own wine needs. This seems unlikely, given recent patterns in grape crush in California, as shown in the next graph (from: Lightest crop in 20 years). The issue here is whether the crush should be increased or decreased for the good of the California wine business (How bad is wine’s oversupply problem?).

On a different note, China is an interesting part of the global wine industry, and potentially an important one given its population size (2025: 17% of the world total). Here, both production and consumption have decreased from a peak in c. 2012–2013, as shown in the next graph (from: What’s happened to the wine market in China?).

Indeed, China’s share of world wine production by volume was 5.5% in 2012 but was 0.8% in 2022; and its share of world wine consumption was 7.5% in 2012 but was 2.4% in 2022. These are pretty serious drops, which the wine industry needs to take note of. Moreover, wine’s share of China’s alcohol consumption was 4.6% in 2012 but was only 1.5% in 2022 (grain-based drinks dominate, including beer).

Clearly, the wine industry will need to look to other populous countries, like India (Which wine regions are finding success in India, and why?). The USA apparently need not look anywhere, just at the moment (How America ruined its enviable position in global drinks culture).

So, there you have it. Things are on the downward path in the world wine industry. This is not news to you, but now I have put some numbers on it.

The most valuable wine brands over recent years

Things are a bit unsettled in the global wine world at the moment, for reasons of which you are presumably well aware. Instead of dealing with that, I thought that it might be more interesting to look at the value of the world’s most valuable wine companies / brands over the past few years. Some are up, some are down, and some are holding ground. Which are which?

The most recent data for wine brands come from Brand Finance for 2024. This company claims to have “the world’s largest database of brand valuations, with over 5,000 new valuations each year, supported by our own original consumer equity research.”

You can peruse a list of the wine data at VinePair for: The world’s 10 most valuable wine and champagne brands (2024). Given that title, it should surprise no-one that the four most valuable brands for 2024 are all from Champagne: Moët & Chandon, Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, and Dom Pérignon. Note that this refers only to individual brands, not to the conglomerates that own many of them (eg. Constellation, Pernod Ricard).

For our purposes here, though, we want to compare these 2024 data to the data for 2023. This I have done in the first graph. Each company is represented by a labeled dot — its value in 2023 is shown horizontally (in millions of $) and its value in 2024 vertically.

Clearly, the same four Champagne brands were at or near the top of the 2023 list as well. This should surprise no-one either, I guess, because France, as it often does with wine, leads the way.

More interestingly, there are only two large changes in value between the two years: Changyu has dropped significantly (second place to fifth place), and Yellow Tail has risen significantly (ninth place to seventh place).

Changyu is China’s century-old wine legend. Its drop in value has been noted in the media (Changyu brand value plummets 33% in a year):

This decline is likely due to the increasing competition from both domestic and international wine brands entering the Chinese market, which has put pressure on Changyu’s market position. Combined with weak financial performance over the past year, these factors have led to a decrease in Changyu’s brand value.

Yellow Tail, on the other hand, has become an Australian legend, developed by Casella Wines. The rapid worldwide success of this brand has been listed as a classic case study of what is referred to as a Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Oceans are uncontested marketplaces; and it is claimed that the Casella brothers deliberately set out to make their own blue ocean: a fun and non-traditional wine that is easy to drink for everyone (Creating value on the vine). Indeed, it has subsequently been noted that retailers should: Range wines by colour rather than country of origin, which is another example of a consumer-friendly approach to wine retail. (That is, these days consumers think about wine from a style perspective.)

We should also look at the most valuable wine brands over several years. We can look at the 2021—2024 data in the second graph. We should note that Penfolds, Yellow Tail and Jacob’s Creek do not appear in the Top 10 for 2021 (Barefoot, Martini, and Concha y Toro appear, instead). Also, Beringer does not appear in the Top 10 for 2022 — its value for 2021 (not shown in the graph) was $300 million.

Note the rapid rise for Penfolds in 2023, and for Yellow Tail in 2024. Lindeman’s has had an erratic performance, up and down, as has Changyu. The wine industry is not always a static place to be, although the other six brands have been fairly steady through time.

Part of the problem here, of course, is global wine production (Champagne sales are slumping):

According to the latest macro analysis from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), an intergovernmental body providing guidance to the wine and grape-growing industry, overall global wine production is now at its lowest point since the turn of the millennium ... the overarching trend for the past 25 years is a clear line sloping downward. Perhaps more menacingly, global wine consumption itself has reached its lowest point since 1996, according to OIV estimates.

In concluding on a happier note, I should remind you that the commercial value of a brand is not its only value. For example, the first large winery complex that I ever visited, in my late teens, was Seppeltsfield, established in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) in 1851 by the Seppelt family. What is equally notable is that the wine my wife and I had with our barbecue the other day was Seppeltsfield Shiraz 2019 (and very nice it was, too). Now that (nearly 5 decades) is continuous value for you!

How long does alcohol stay in your system?

 I noted in my previous post (More medical results suggesting that wines are usually safe to drink) that it is often difficult for drinkers to estimate their own intake. This is because even Small changes in wine alcohols can make a big difference. I presented a table showing the blood alcohol concentration for an average 130-pound woman who consumes two 5-ounce glasses of wine over 1.5 hours. It looked like this:

Alcohol     Blood alcohol
content     concentration
  12%          0.065%
  13%          0.073%
  14%          0.081%
  15%          0.088%

So, let’s look at how it gets like this. Alcohol enters your stomach as its first stop. Here, if you produce enzymes known as alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) and aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) then these break down some of the alcohol, thus preventing it from entering your bloodstream. Sadly, studies have shown that women tend to have lower levels of ADH than men; and people who drink regularly have lower ADH levels than people who rarely or never drink (Cleveland Clinic).

From the stomach the alcohol goes into the small intestine, where it is transferred to your bloodstream. This is when you notice it. The liver then picks up the alcohol from the blood, and starts to convert it to acetaldehhyde and then acetate, using ADH, ALDH, cytochrome P450 (CYP2E1) and catalase (Overview: how is alcohol metabolized by the body?) — see the diagram if you want the details. About 90% is processed by the liver, with the rest coming out via your kidneys (to your urine), lungs (to the air) and skin.

Alcohol typically stays in your system for about 1 hour per standard drink consumed. One standard drink is about 14 grams of ethanol (ie. alcohol), the amount found in (Cleveland Clinic):

• 12 ounces of regular beer with 5% ethanol (about one can of beer)
• 5 ounces of wine with 12% ethanol (about one glass of wine)
• 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits (80 proof) with 40% ethanol (about one shot).

Alcohol takes around 60—90 minutes to reach peak levels in your blood, before the body begins breaking it down. The half-life of alcohol (how long it takes for your body to get rid of half of it) is 4—5 hours. However, you need about 5 half-lives to get rid of alcohol completely — so, it takes about 25 hours for your body to get clear all of the alcohol.

Furthermore, alcohol can be detected:

• in blood for 6 to 12 hours,
• in breath and saliva for 12 to 24 hours,
• in urine for 12 to 24 hours (ethanol test), but up to 80 (EtG test) to 130 hours (5.5 days), and
• in hair for up to 90 days.

There is even a biomarker called Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) that reflects alcohol intake, and can be detected in urine up to 14 days.

The exact duration of alcohol detection varies based on characteristics of your body like:

• body weight — the less you weigh then the less water you have in your body; and since alcohol goes into the water in your blood, if you have less water then your blood alcohol concentration (BAC) will be higher,
• metabolism — some health conditions can make it harder for your body to process alcohol,
• medications — prescription medicines and over-the-counter medications can have interactions with alcohol,
• age — the speed of alcohol processing slows down as we get older,
• gender — women take longer to process alcohol than men (see above),
• your ancestry — we all have different genes, which may have an effect on alcohol processing, and
• the amount of alcohol consumed.

It is usually better to consume alcohol with food. However, food changes how your body processes alcohol but not how fast it can do it (Cleveland Clinic). Food makes the alcohol hang on in the stomach for a while, and your stomach then gets time to break down some of the alcohol before it moves into the small intestine, and thus into the bloodstream.

Caffeine is sometimes recommended, as it is a stimulant, which can perk you up and make you feel less intoxicated (Cleveland Clinic). However, you can then lose track of how much you’ve had to drink; and the caffeine won’t clear the alcohol from your system any faster.

It is also important to consider the effect on your brain of drinking too much. Moderate drinkers have been seen as those who have seven or fewer drinks per week, while heavy drinkers have had eight or more drinks per week. The latter can have problems (Eight or more drinks per week linked to signs of injury in the brain).

As a final aside, there is also a thing known as “auto brewery syndrome” (Man with rare condition that turns carbs into alcohol in his stomach). Here, your body turns sugary and starchy foods (ie. carbohydrates) into alcohol in your stomach, via endogenous ethanol fermentation (a.k.a. gut fermentation syndrome). So, people with this condition can get drunk simply by eating a slice of cake. This syndrome has appeared in TV episodes of both Chicago Med and Doc Martin.

More medical results suggesting that wines are usually safe to drink

People seem to be becoming more mindful of their alcohol intake for health reasons. However, I have recently noted medical evidence that wine is usually safe to drink with regard to both cancer and heart disease, which are currently the two major causes of death in the Western world.

There are, however, many other health issues that we may encounter, and it is interesting to check out whether wine is troublesome there, as well. Indeed, commentators other than WHO (who have focused on cancer) have emphasized some of these alternative medical issues. Here, I will look at these other issues, noting that they are not necessarily a big deal, either.

At first, however, I will note that Risky drinkers underestimate their own alcohol consumption. Indeed, it is often difficult even for non-risky drinkers to estimate their own intake. This is because even Small changes in wine alcohols can make a big difference. The table below shows the blood alcohol concentration for an average 130-pound woman who consumes two 5-ounce glasses of wine over 1.5 hours. When I was a teenager in Australia, the slogan was “under .05 or under arrest”, as far as driving a car was concerned.

Alcohol     Blood alcohol
content     concentration
  12%          0.065%
  13%          0.073%
  14%          0.081%
  15%          0.088%

So, now being mindful of the volume of alcohol intake, we might start by looking at what is called All-Cause Mortality. In this regard, we can consider Is drinking wine in moderation good for health or not? We can quote from this science report:

Drinking alcoholic beverages is associated with various health effects in the population ... All these effects seem primarily to be associated with the amount of alcohol consumed; the role of the different alcoholic beverages, and of their minor components, in this regard is in fact not clearly defined ... the association with all-cause mortality is complex, and J-shaped, with a consumption window theoretically associated with a reduction in all-cause mortality, up to 25 g alcohol per day. However, this issue is the subject of intense scientific debate.

So, that does not really help us in much of a practical way. So, let's move on, in particular, to red wine itself. Here, we get information directly from medical experiments: Health effects of red wine consumption: a narrative review of an issue that still deserves debate. To quote from this comprehensive review of the recent medical literature (in 2023):

This review evaluated randomised controlled trials (RCTs), examining the recent literature on the correlations between acute and chronic RW [red wine] consumption and health. All RCTs published in English on PubMed from 1 January 2000 to 28 February 2023 were evaluated. Ninety-one RCTs were included in this review, seven of which had a duration of more than six months. We assessed the effect of RW on: (1) antioxidant status, (2) cardiovascular function, (3) coagulation pathway and platelet function, (4) endothelial function and arterial stiffness, (5) hypertension, (6) immune function and inflammation status, (7) lipid profile and homocysteine levels, (8) body composition, type 2 diabetes and glucose metabolism, and (9) gut microbiota and the gastrointestinal tract. RW consumption mostly results in improvements in antioxidant status, thrombosis and inflammation markers, lipid profile, and gut microbiota, with conflicting results on hypertension and cardiac function. Notably, beneficial effects were observed on oxidative stress, inflammation, and nephropathy markers, with a modest decrease in CVD [cardio-vascular disease] risk in five out of seven studies that evaluated the effect of RW consumption.

So, that sounds very promising. Diet is also of importance (Research shows wine enhances the impact of the Mediterranean diet):

This year [2024], for the seventh year running, the Mediterranean diet was ranked the healthiest in the world by US News & World Report ... Professor Ramon Estruch: “but if you put moderate drinking, especially wine, under the umbrella of the Mediterranean diet, the health effect is much higher. And if you practise exercise and so on, the effect is much better. But I think that the highest power of these is diet.” Indeed, the importance of diet has been emphasized elsewhere. For example, when studying Alcohol consumption patterns and mortality among older adults with health-related or socioeconomic risk factors, it was noted that: “Wine preference and drinking only with meals were associated with attenuating the excess mortality associated with alcohol consumption.”

Furthermore, red wine with the food can lower blood sugar faster, especially in combination with Mediterranean food (Vin, snus och ingen frukost? Här är professorns råd som vänder upp och ner på hälsomyterna [in Swedish]).

Regarding diet and sugar, diabetes itself is often of concern. However, it has been noted in a recent experiment (Alcohol intake, drinking pattern, and risk of Type 2 Diabetes in three prospective cohorts of U.S. women and men) that: “Light to moderate alcohol consumption, especially regular light drinking, was associated with a lower risk of Type 2 Diabetes in both men and women.” A much earlier (2009) summary of this pattern is illustrated in the graph above, with females at the top and males below (Alcohol as a risk factor for Type 2 Diabetes).

If you want to read another summary of potential issues then The Drinks Business (The scientific studies showing the health benefits of wine) has this overview:

Here, we look back through the years at the drinks business, and provide a comprehensive overview of the health benefits associated with wine from scientific studies that we have covered in the past several decades.

As I have noted before: There are NO scientific experiments saying: don’t drink alcohol. Much of the current “scientific” anti-alcohol noise comes from Tim Stockwell, as I explicitly discussed in that post, and his associated new-Prohibitionist organization Movendi International (aka the International Organisation of Good Templars). Felicity Carter provides an alternative perspective on this issue (The rise of anti-alcohol messaging and ‘neo-prohibitionism’). In the meantime, stick to wine (as opposed to other alcohols) and science says that you will be quite well off.

Tasting six Brunello di Montalcino, vintage 2010

Brunello di Montalcino is a red DOCG Italian wine produced in the vineyards surrounding the town of Montalcino, in the province of Siena, located about 80 km south of Florence, in the Tuscany wine region. Famous for being the DOCG with the longest ageing requirement and for its prodigiously tannic, age-worthy Sangiovese, Brunello di Montalcino is a gem among Italy’s fine wine regions.

Notes on the vintage

Decanter magazine

Brunello di Montalcino 2010 – the finest vintage yet?

The near-perfect growing conditions in 2010 have resulted in one of the finest vintages in a generation. The beautiful conditions produced first rate Sangiovese, which in the hands of skilled wine makers has resulted in the finest examples in a generation, better even than the highly-rated 2004 and 2006 vintages. 2010 really is something special.

The 2010 vintage provided perfect conditions throughout the year and is clearly exceptional. Generous rainfall enabled vital refilling of the reserves during winter and the spring continued this theme, bringing vigour to the vines, whilst the weather during the summer months was warm enough for optimum ripening and moderated by very few heat spikes which kept away the threat of over ripeness. The end result brought wines of depth and complexity, with good levels of acidity bringing freshness to the sumptuous fruit and ripe, assertive tannins. There is tremendous structure behind these wines which suggests a long, illustrious life ahead.

Brunello di Montalcino 2010 panel tasting results August 14, 2018

Rated as one of the top all-time vintages in Montalcino, many unheralded producers did very well in this tasting.

Jancis Robinson

Tuscany 2010

Much cooler than the hot 2009. A very wet winter continuing into a very wet spring was followed by a cool growing cycle. The heat that came in July helped to reduce the delay in ripening that was by then an estimated 15 days behind schedule. Sangiovese was harvested as late as the third week of October and many producers had to do several pickings to obtain regularly ripe grapes in the fermentation tanks. Montalcino, exceptionally, was drier than other parts of Tuscany and the long and slow ripening of the grapes resulted in what is considered an outstanding vintage with true ageing potential for years to come.

Wine Scholar Guild

Tuscany 2010

The growing season was quite warm, but not torrid in 2010, with average rainfall totals spread out throughout the year. Thanks to warm days and cool nights in the weeks leading up to harvest, the grapes were picked at excellent levels of ripeness. Despite the warm temperatures, acidity levels are higher than normal, giving these wines excellent aging potential. Look for 15-20 years of drinkability with the top wines.

Vintage charts

Wines to taste

Brief tasting notes

Bottles were opened 4 hours before tasting; all wines opened up in the glass when poured, suggesting that they could have been opened much earlier. The eight amateur participants rated all of the wines as excellent.

Val di Suga Montalcino

After discussion, voted third best. Opened up in the glass: forest floor, tar, resin / rubber, red berries, butter. Taste of fig, with citrus and earth aftertaste. Went well with the food at the end of the tasting (Mediterranean pie).

Fattoi

Cork very hard to remove. Strong berry / acid combination in the mouth; and took much longer to open up in the glass. Aroma of mint, salami, tar: and taste of jammy plum and citrus. Quite different to the other wines; and everyone agreed that it went best with the food at the end.

Col d'Orcia

Much less tannin / acid initially. After discussion, voted equal fourth best. Aroma of soil / wet leaves and pot pourri; rich taste of acid, plum and soil / cigar box, aftertaste of citrus and tannin.

Tenuta La Fuga

Darker colour. Less tannin / acid and milder taste initially, but opened up. However, much more elegant immediately, and voted as the best wine by all participants. Aroma grass / vegetation initially. Mild but elegant taste, notably liquorice, plum, leather, tannins.

Fattoria dei Barbi

After discussion, voted equal fourth best. Mild initially, pine needles, but opened up to aroma of plum, vanilla, pine / resin; taste of resin / kerosene initially, followed by very fruity plum.

Castiglion del Bosco

Hardly any pale rim, and much darker throughout; less tannin / acid, but keeps it — clearly destined for a long life. After discussion, voted as second best. Started with least taste initially, but later much stronger fruity flavours, notably plum.

Afterword

When dealing with a comparative wine tasting, we might consider how the Ancient Greeks viewed time. They had two words for time: Chronos and Kairos. Chronos refers to the quantitative or measurable passage of time. Kairos refers to a qualitative assessment of the right time, the opportune or perfect moment. Clearly, when deciding when to open a bottle of wine we consider Chronos, but we are also hoping for Kairos. A good wine tasting gets both concepts right.

Medical research concerning heart disease indicates that wines are safe to drink

The main point that I made in the previous blog post (Contrary to WHO, recent medical research shows that wine is safe for cancer) was that the WHO's recent attack on drinking alcohol has focused on cancer as a cause of health problems, and that this has been shown by medical evidence not to be true for wine.

I also pointed out that cancer is only the No.2 cause of deaths, whereas No. 1 is heart disease, as shown in the first figure below (from Leading causes of death in the US, 2019—2023). Indeed, the WHO Cardiovascular diseases 2023 reports an estimated 17.9 million deaths each year, making up 32% of total global fatalities.

So, the thing we should be most interested in is what is known technically as Cardiovascular Disease, the No. 1 cause of deaths in the USA for many years. That is what I will do in this post, noting that it also is fairly safe as far as wine is concerned.

I will proceed in the same manner as last time. As before, it is important to first note that wine is not the same as other forms of alcohol intake, especially in terms of the medical effects. Then we can proceed to look at a recent research publication (17 June 2023) that compiled the results from 25 medical research studies concerning the effects of wine on people in relation to heart disease (Association between wine consumption with cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis). This has made it clear that heart disease is not often associated with wine intake, as opposed to other forms of alcohol or other health issues.

So, this publication (Nutrients 2023, 15:2785) was based on a search of the medical literature, in which 7 suitable studies were found from the 1980s/90s and 18 from the 2000s. The studies were from nine countries, including Australia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The study looked separately at cardiovascular mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and coronary heart disease (CHD).

The detailed summary of the publication is this:

Background: The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was: (i) to examine the association between wine consumption and cardiovascular mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and coronary heart disease (CHD), and (ii) to analyse whether this association could be influenced by personal and study factors, including the participants’ mean age, the percentage of female subjects, follow-up time and percentage of current smokers.

Methods: In order to conduct this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched several databases for longitudinal studies from their inception to March 2023. This study was previously registered with PROSPERO (CRD42021293568).

Results: This systematic review included 25 studies, of which the meta-analysis included 22 studies. The pooled RR [Relative Risk] for the association of wine consumption and the risk of CHD using the DerSimonian and Laird approach was 0.76 (95% CIs: 0.69, 0.84), for the risk of CVD was 0.83 (95% CIs: 0.70, 0.98), and for the risk of cardiovascular mortality was 0.73 (95% CIs: 0.59, 0.90).

Conclusions: This research revealed that wine consumption has an inverse relationship to cardiovascular mortality, CVD, and CHD. Age, the proportion of women in the samples, and follow-up time did not influence this association. Interpreting these findings with prudence was necessary because increasing wine intake might be harmful to individuals who are vulnerable to alcohol because of age, medication, or their pathologies.

The situation is now quite clear. Wine is no more dangerous for increasing the risk of heart disease than it is for increasing the risk of cancer. It is worth also noting that a more recent, much smaller, set of medical data (Urinary tartaric acid as a biomarker of wine consumption and cardiovascular risk: the PREDIMED trial) suggests that “∼3–12 and 12–35 glasses/month of wine, were associated with lower CVD risk [HR 0.62 (95% CI 0.38; 1.00), P=.050 and HR 0.50 (95% CI 0.27; 0.95), P=.035, respectively].” This reduction in risk has previously been reported in the generalist literature (New evidence on the relationship between moderate wine consumption and cardiovascular health).

The WHO stated attitude in their 2023 publication in The Lancet that: “no safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers and health can be established” (Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption) is therefore even more mysterious than I noted last week, flying as it does in the face of two sets of comprehensive medical evidence.

Mitch Frank, editor of Wine Spectator, thinks that this “is part of a movement trying to paint all alcohol as dangerous by making broad, oversimplified claims”(Cherry-picked science? the confusing narrative around wine and health). In that same article, wine writer Dave McIntyre says that the current anti-alcohol movement, which in his recent coverage he dubs The New Prohibition, is trying to shift consumer messaging away from drinking responsibly to not drinking at all. Frank also calls attention to a major new scientific report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) (National Academies publishes findings on alcohol and health) which found that moderate drinking is linked to lower death rates compared to not drinking at all. This finding is expected to help shape U.S. dietary guidelines for 2025–2030.

Contrary to WHO, recent medical research shows that wine is safe for cancer

One of the main points that I made in my previous blog post (Recent science reports suggesting that wine alcohol is usually safe to drink) was that the World Health Organization's recent attack on drinking alcohol has focused mainly on cancer as a cause of health problems. Other commentators, however, have emphasized alternative medical issues, which may be less troublesome.

You should read that previous post to set the scene. This obviously has a big effect on the wine industry, affecting wine sales especially among the young people.

In this new post, I will take a more recent look specifically at cancer in relationship to wine consumption. I will look at the range of the other health issues next week, noting that they are also not necessarily as big a deal as has been made out. So, we can all continue to safely drink wine (in moderation).

First, however, it is worth mentioning that there actually is a good reason for the WHO’s focus on cancer. If we take the USA as but one example, we can see that Cancer has been recorded as the No. 2 cause of death, behind Heart disease, as shown in the first figure (from Leading causes of death in the US, 2019—2023). So, anything that potentially increases cancer risk is worth looking at, as far as health is concerned.

However, it is also important to note that wine is not the same as other forms of alcohol intake, especially in terms of the medical effects. Indeed, a very recent research publication (31 January 2025) compiled the results from 42 medical research studies concerning the effects of wine on people in relation to cancer (Consumption of red versus white wine and cancer risk: a meta-analysis of observational studies). This has made it clear that cancer is not associated with wine intake, as opposed to other forms of alcohol or other health issues.

So, this publication (Nutrients 2025, 17:534) was based on a search of the medical literature, in which 8 studies were found from the 1990s and 34 from the 2000s. There were 24 studies found from the US / Canada and 18 in Other regions, which are quite respectable sample numbers. The organs studied for cancer included: skin, lung, kidney / urinary tract, colon / rectum, prostate, ovary, and female breast.

The detailed summary of the publication is this:

 

Objectives: While alcoholic beverage consumption increases cancer risk, red wine has been touted as a healthier option. To address this unexplored question, we conducted a meta-analysis to summarize evidence from observational studies.

 

Methods: A literature search of PubMed and EMBASE through December 2023 identified studies examining wine and cancer risk. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to estimate relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for an association between wine intake and overall cancer risk.

Results: A total of 20 cohort and 22 case–control studies were included. Wine intake was not associated with overall cancer risk (n = 95,923) when comparing the highest vs. lowest levels of consumption, with no differences observed by wine type (red: summary RR = 0.98 [95% CI = 0.87, 1.10], white: 1.00 [0.91, 1.10]; Pdifference = 0.74). However, white wine intake was significantly associated with an increased risk of cancer among women (white: 1.26 [1.05, 1.52], red: 0.91 [95% CI: 0.72, 1.16], Pdifference = 0.03) and in analyses restricted to cohort studies (white: 1.12 [1.03, 1.22], red: 1.02 [95% CI: 0.96, 1.09], Pdifference = 0.02). For individual cancer sites, there was a significant difference in associations between red and white wine intake only in skin cancer risk [6 studies, white: 1.22 (1.14, 1.30), red: 1.02 (0.95, 1.09); Pdifference = 0.0003].

Conclusions: We found no differences in the association between red or white wine consumption and overall cancer risk, challenging the common belief that red wine is healthier than white wine. Our significant results related to white wine intake in subgroup analyses warrant further investigation.

The situation is now quite clear. The WHO's 2023 publication in The Lancet that: “no safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers and health can be established” (Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption) has two limitations. First, it pools all alcohol types together, rather than looking at wine separately — and wine is very different in terms of its health effect. Second, it does not take into account the 2025 publication concerning the effect of wine on cancer — this points out that the medical studies do not find any important effects of wine consumption on human cancer.

As a final point, it is also worth noting the comments about WHO made by Ramon Estruch:

When it comes to the WHO declaration, Prof. Estruch has some scepticism about the methods used. 

 

First, the declaration was based on the Global Burden of Disease work, and he says the results were confounded because the general consumption of alcohol across the world was dropped into the mix, and the specific way that alcohol is consumed is extremely important.

“Context is very important in the effects of alcoholic beverages,” he says. “Drinking gin outside of meals is not the same as drinking wine with meals. The frequency of consumption is also important.”

He says another problem was that some studies considered weekly consumption of alcohol, rather than daily consumption. “It’s not the same. If you have one drink, seven days a week, it’s not the same as seven drinks in one day. That’s binge drinking.”

Recent science reports suggesting that wine alcohol is usually safe to drink

We are all well aware that back in 2023 the World Health Organization (WHO) published in The Lancet a statement that “no safe amount of alcohol consumption for cancers and health can be established” (Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption). No evidence was explicitly provided in this publication, but half a dozen references are cited in support of the claims that: “The overall risks and harms resulting from alcohol consumption have been systematically assessed and are well documented.”

I thought that it might be interesting to gather together references to publications that refute these claims, or at least suggest that they are exaggerated; and that is what I have done here and in the next post.

At first, I will start by pointing out that a reply to the above publication was published in The Lancet a couple of months later (Alcohol and health: all, none, or somewhere in-between?):

The risks and harms associated with alcohol are well documented, and the substantial harms of heavy or binge drinking are not debated. But health benefits of lower levels of alcohol intake have been widely reported. Many studies have shown that low or moderate amounts of alcohol (particularly red wine) can reduce risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even death — possibly due in part to a tendency to reduce systemic inflammatory mediators. These benefits might be limited to adults older than 40 years ... Potential benefits of light to moderate alcohol consumption have also been reported among patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Dire warnings like these seem to have become commonplace (a similar statement about alcohol and cancer was issued by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2017) and have the potential to be ignored by many people as undesirable and unattainable. WHO correctly argues that no studies have addressed whether the potential benefits of alcohol on cardiovascular disease and diabetes outweigh the risks with regard to cancer, and that the harms of alcohol fall disproportionately on disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. In view of these truths, a why-risk-it approach might seem sensible. But interpretation of the seemingly conflicting reports requires consideration of many factors, including the varying levels of alcohol intake considered light to moderate, competing risk factors for disease, choice of comparator groups, and the known pitfalls of self-reported alcohol consumption. It is also important to put the results of these studies in the context of absolute levels of risk (versus relative risk) associated with alcohol intake, which are generally quite small.

So, even at the time, the WHO’s pronouncement was questioned, because it focused on cancer rather than any other health characteristics (of which there are many!). And, of course, alcoholism itself is not good for you, by definition.

However, organizations that advocate for more stringent policies around the sale and marketing of alcohol are gaining momentum (What do neo-prohibitionists really want?). In fact, it has been suggested that the influence is entering US politics (Source says Feds will declare “no amount of alcohol” is healthy). So, we need to take this seriously.

Now we might look at some other publications, that review the topic. These also refer to things other than cancer, and in particular they focus on wine as opposed to other forms of alcohol. I will look at an overview paper here, and then continue next week with some more details.

We should start with defining low (1–7 drinks/week) and moderate (8–21 drinks/week) wine drinkers, as designated in the best of the recent review articles (Moderate wine consumption and health: A narrative review). These researchers note:

Although it is clearly established that the abuse of alcohol is seriously harmful to health, much epidemiological and clinical evidence seem to underline the protective role of moderate quantities of alcohol and in particular of wine on health. This narrative review aims to re-evaluate the relationship between the type and dose of alcoholic drink and reduced or increased risk of various diseases, in the light of the most current scientific evidence. In particular, in vitro studies on the modulation of biochemical pathways and gene expression of wine bioactive components were evaluated. Twenty-four studies were selected after PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar searches for the evaluation of moderate alcohol/wine consumption and health effects: eight studies concerned cardiovascular diseases, three concerned type 2 diabetes, four concerned neurodegenerative diseases, five concerned cancer and four were related to longevity. A brief discussion on viticultural and enological practices potentially affecting the content of bioactive components in wine is included. The analysis clearly indicates that wine differs from other alcoholic beverages and its moderate consumption not only does not increase the risk of chronic degenerative diseases but is also associated with health benefits particularly when included in a Mediterranean diet model. Obviously, every effort must be made to promote behavioral education to prevent abuse, especially among young people.

So, wine is not the same as other forms of alcohol. If you want to get technical: “the beneficial effects of wine are mostly derived from its polyphenolic content, and this represents the crucial difference between wine and other alcoholic beverages.”

We also need to get clear what we mean by “a drink”. We might try this definition (Why do medical experts define moderate drinking as one to two glasses of wine per day?):

In the United States, the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) recommend that men consume no more than two alcoholic beverages per day, and that women consume no more than one. Those U.S. Dietary Guidelines issued by the federal government also serve as guidelines for medical professionals when they define moderate drinking.

However, exactly how much alcohol constitutes one “drink” varies from country to country, as do dietary guidelines. In the U.S., one “drink” is defined as containing 14 grams (0.6 fluid ounces) of pure alcohol, which equates to 12 ounces of beer (5 percent alcohol by volume), 5 ounces of wine (12 percent ABV) or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits (40 percent).

In Europe, a standard glass is often taken to contain 12 grams of alcohol, instead. This is: 50 cl standard beer, 33 cl strong beer, 12 cl wine, 4 cl of liquor (Dags för “alkoholfri operation“ [in Swedish]). By risky use of alcohol these scientists then mean: >14 standard glasses / week for men and ≥5 standard glasses at one time for men, and >9 standard glasses / week for women and ≥4 standard glasses at one time for women. This Swedish paper then discusses how much you should reduce these before hospital operations.

That might be enough science for one week. Next week I will look some more at where those glasses can safely go, according to research.

Search popularity versus the price of Australasian wines

I have sometimes looked at this topic: The relationship of wine price to wine-quality scores. However, that mostly involves the professionals (who provide the scores), not the public (ie. the rest of us). So, today I thought that I might look at web-search popularity of wines, instead. I have previously done this for: The world’s most expensive wines! However, that situation is not for most of us either!

Recently the idea has been raised that Australia and New Zealand might become a single wine zone (Reimagine the border of New World wine regions). Indeed, there is already a joint Australian & New Zealand Wine Industry Directory (2025 Wine Industry Directory released).  So, this might be an interesting topic for looking at search popularity. (I have previously looked at their wine production and consumption: Australia and New Zealand wine comparisons). Are these areas equally as popular for the web searches for their wines?

The article cited above on unification notes:

Given this year’s joint tasting event, the wine industry is curious to see the possibility of Australia and New Zealand becoming a unified wine zone. In the evolving landscape of New World wines, Australia and New Zealand have emerged as prominent players in the New World wine landscape, each offering distinct and high-quality wine profiles. While collaborative marketing efforts have gained momentum, it's essential to understand the unique characteristics that define their wine industries.

To compare the similarity of any two regions, Wine Searcher is a good place to choose data, since it is dedicated to accumulating a database of both the price (see: Average Wine Prices) and the search popularity (see: Wine-Searcher Technology) of wines. It claims to base the data on 240 million searches of its database by consumers each year.

Wine Searcher publishes annual Top lists of its data, and the recent ones of relevance here are:

• The world's most wanted Australian wines of 2025
• The world's most wanted New Zealand wines of 2025.

I have plotted these two sets of data (10 wines for each country) in the first graph, with each wine represented by a point, located with its Search rank horizontally and Average Price vertically.

As you can see, there are three Australian wines where the price stands out from the main bunch of wines, both Australian and New Zealand. These are: Henschke Hill of Grace Shiraz, Penfolds Grange Bin 95, and Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon. Otherwise, there is no particular relationship between search rank and price — popular wines for search are neither the cheapest nor the most expensive wines, for either country.

Equally importantly, though, all of the Australian wines are more popular in search terms than are all but two of the New Zealand wines, which are: Kumeu River Maté's Vineyard Chardonnay, and Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc. The Australian wines thus appear to be much better known. This is in spite of The rise and rise of New Zealand wine.

The article about unifying the Australian and New Zealand wine zones does note differences between the two countries:

Australia's wine industry is renowned for its diversity, with climates and terroirs that create a rich variety of wine styles. The country has developed a comprehensive appellation system featuring over 60 designated wine regions, producing wine in every state ... Today, Australia ranks among the world's largest wine exporters.

Renowned for its aromatic Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand is a leading wine-producing nation, acclaimed for its cool-climate Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Bordeaux-style blends, and Syrah. Located in the Pacific Ocean, 2,000 kilometres (1,300 miles) southeast of Australia, its 10 major wine regions span two main islands, with Marlborough as the most prominent.

So, Australia is a much bigger and more diverse wine-producing region. Indeed, it has previously been noted that New Zealand should be doing more to emphasize its own unique place in terms of quality (New Zealand Pinot finds its place):

In 2023, New Zealand was the sixth largest exporter of wine in the world by value; by volume it was the 11th. The US remains its number one market, largely due to its thirst for Sauvignon Blanc ... Eric Asimov, perhaps bravely, furthered that New Zealand needs to do more to promote its product and engage more with sommeliers and importers ... He concluded that by promoting its own tremendous story, New Zealand Pinot Noir will then find its place in the world.

On the other hand, it has also been suggest that: The next great Chardonnays are from New Zealand. In particular:

New Zealand has been producing Chardonnay for decades, but quality examples of this wine are on the rise from both islands ... In fact, it was the most-planted variety in New Zealand in the 1990s. Sauvignon Blanc may now rule when it comes to quantity, but the quality of Chardonnay is on its own steep incline.

Interestingly, in self-deprecating style, it has also been suggested that fine wine is perhaps not what New Zealand should be emphasizing (Leading NZ producer to move away from fine wine). Two Felton Road wines are in the list of the top ten most-searched wines (8: Felton Road Bannockburn Pinot Noir; 9: Felton Road Block 5 Pinot Noir). However, their producer has noted:

“The whole notion of fine wine is based around over-priced snobbery,” declared Felton Road owner and vigneron Nigel Greening during a panel discussion at the Pinot conference held in Christchurch between 11–13 February ... From here on, he added, Felton Road is “uncomfortable belonging to the fine wine sphere.”

Mind you, the same article also notes:

Felton Road is no stranger to fine wine. One of Central Otago’s leading producers, it commands impressive prices globally for its organic and biodynamic wines. One of just a handful of producers to make Pinot Noir exclusively from Bannockburn, New Zealand’s latest GI, which became a protected region on 1 February 2022, Felton Road also crafts premium Chardonnay and Riesling from three vineyards in this coveted spot on the South Island.

So, as a conclusion, pay attention from now on — an increase in New Zealand web searches for wines will indicate that you are doing so. But look for the affordable stuff (see US imports here: Can you tell the difference between Australia and New Zealand wine?).

As a final aside, we could look at the critics scores for the 40 Most Popular American Products (ie. the most-searched-for wines). Here, in this second graph, we can see that there is a very distinct increasing relationship between score and price. Personally, I could not afford any of the wines with scores >91 points. This is not true for either the Australia or New Zealand wines (graphed above), where I could afford most of the wines with these scores.