Wine Writing Trends for 2026
My predictions about the future of wine commentary
I was recently asked to contribute ideas for an article about 2026 wine trends. The assignment was open-ended, just three bullet points about whatever I see on the horizon.
I’m not a trend-chaser, although I’m always monitoring industry news, which is lately alive with headlines about tariffs, neo-Prohibitionism, labor shortages, packaging innovations, and growers’ responses to climate chaos.
But my principal research interests consider wine discourse itself, the practice and poetics of storytelling about this beautiful, sometimes confounding, cultural artifact. I’m interested in how we individually and collectively make meaning out of wine, and how language can serve that exercise. So instead of focusing on industry trends (which other writers could better address anyway), I offered three bullet points about the immediate future of wine commentary.
Naturally, I had a longer list, but stopped myself at seven. Most of these trends are well underway. Some are dispiriting, some uplifting. But all of them, being our collective future, are within our power to change.
