Reasonable wines for the coming year

The luxury market has driven up the price of all iconic wines. High prices risk alienating a new generation of wine lovers and this could create a serious problem for the future of the sector. Fortunately, Italy still offers very good wines at affordable prices.

Back in 1979, when I was just 24 years old and still in college, running a little behind schedule, I remember working for a month placing leaflets on windshields in order to earn enough to buy a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino Riserva 1964 Biondi Santi. It cost 100,000 euros (about 50 euros today) at the time and it was absolutely the most expensive Italian wine around. And it was a lot of money then, about a quarter of an average employee’s monthly salary, which adjusted for inflation would be somewhere between 350 and 400 euros today.

While this was and is a lot of money, it cannot be compared to what some iconic wines cost today, which sometimes are two or three times as much. In Italy, this is the case for certain Brunello, various Barolo and Barbaresco, some Super Tuscans and a couple of Amarone. In France, on the other hand, the situation is even more evident with the famous Burgundy wines and some from Bordeaux, especially Pomerol, costing several thousand euros a bottle.

The reasons for this are various, the most important probably being that demand has grown from countries other than the traditional markets, like from the United States, Russia and China, in particular. And higher demand translates into higher prices.

What this means is that, today, someone who is the age I was then, even if they work hard for a month, cannot even dream of being able to afford a bottle like the one I bought back then. And this goes for people of all ages, wine lovers who have some money to spend for wine but not enough for the best.

The luxury market has always existed in many sectors but, in regard to wine, prices have only exploded over the last 20 years and for reasons that are clear to see. The fault does not simply lie with producers, some of whom have indeed hiked up their prices over the years, but with market speculation that exploits situations, with investors acquiring the very famous wines at the source and then selling them at much higher prices around the world to the so-called big spenders.

I am not trying to make a moral argument, only to point out that certain wines are only available to the very well off and not mere humans like ourselves. At a time like the one we are currently going through and which risks aggravating this situation, the coming year should inspire those who write, evaluate and taste wines, be they professionals or simple wine lovers, to write, evaluate and taste less and less of the luxury wines, if they can afford them, and more of those that are affordable. This if they want to be useful to others and not just show off what they can do given the position they are in.

This is made easier by the fact that Italy, in all likelihood, has the greatest range in the world of wines that have a formidable quality/price ratio. And this does not necessarily mean cheap wines but rather quality wines at reasonable prices. For example, a few weeks ago DoctorWine published an article looking at Morellino di Scansano, an appellation that may not be as “stellar” as others in Tuscany but is still famous. We singled out four wines that cost between 10 and 15 euros in wine shops or online. And there are many other wines like these from all over Italy.

I believe that the year to come, and perhaps even those that follow, when we hope this terrible period will be over, will be a year of reasonable wines. Wines that will also allow many young people to approach the world of wine without apprehension, to cultivate their passion, visit wineries, each with their own preferences and without feeling inadequate, even and above all from an economic point of view. The same could be said for many other sectors but, as for the world of wine, it should be clear to everyone that not allowing young people to develop their passion could create a very serious problem and prices that are too high are not helping at all.