The New Year always starts out with folks wanting to make prognostications as to what the forthcoming twelve months will bring. Financial people look at indicators from the opening day on Wall Street (up 150’ish for those who don’t recall) to consumer confidence numbers. Retailers take physical and emotional inventory of the ‘OND’ (October-November-December) and especially the holiday ‘D’ numbers while restaurateurs intuitively get a hit from the level of consumer happiness they detect in the dining room, the number of private parties booked at holiday and what they were spending, and bullishly anticipate what the first few weeks of the year will bring.

And for wine? Well there are a gazillion articles that have been penned over the past few months all intimating what the future holds and I will refrain for incorporating a series of links but you can easily track them down. For my two cents, most of them seem to say the same thing and be in agreement and I am, for the most part, in agreement with them. So for 2010…

Consumers will continue to shop but be conservative in their wine shopping habits. They will be value driven which benefits countries that specialize in great value for price (Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Chile, some of Australia). It will hurt places where value is perceived to be less obvious- Napa Valley, France, Italy, etc..

When dining out, wine by the glass, wine flights and carafes/quartinos will pick up while bottle sales will likely be soft, flat, or up but at lower per bottle ring sales.

For the first half of the year, or until there’s clear indication that it’s ‘safe to go back in the water,’ high end grocery take out, cooking in, cheap eating out will continue to trend up in the first part of the year.

Because of the point above, wine retail will benefit but still with an eye to value, as noted in my first point.

Some wine drinkers will supplement their wine habits more than usual by flirting with craft beer, cocktails, and non alcoholic, but will still be wine drinkers at heart.

Contrary to what the nay sayers predict, there will be a time when we see a healthy return to some big buck bottles, but it will not be for a good long while until people ‘forget’ this recent and current eco-malaise and feel financially more secure. Then they’ll have epicurean amnesia. How ‘fresh’ is 9-11 for most people? OK… pre the Christmas day foiled attempt and all the subsequent ramifications…

Will all of this be true… likely not. Some points more so than others, of course. But it will be intriguing for all to look back one year out and see if we were right.

Thoughts?