2026 Wine trends: Sparkling adventures, AI sommeliers, and a thirst for value

Key topics:Sparkling, nonalcoholic, and adventurous wines lead 2026 trendsAI sommeliers and immersive winery experiences reshape wine cultureMillennials and Gen Z drive wine consumption, seeking value and fun.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Elin McCoy.I’ve been peering into my crystal glass to see where the wine world is going in 2026, but the future is cloudy right now. For example: Will the US Supreme Court rule against President Donald Trump’s tariffs, so wine prices don’t go up even more? We’ll have to wait and see.On the other hand, I’m confident climate change will affect grape growing for the foreseeable future. The UK’s Met Office predicts 2026 will be among the top four warmest years ever recorded, which means more floods, storms, heat waves, drought and wildfires in historic regions in 2026, causing winemakers to plant more vines in cooler climes such as in Sweden.Some trends from this past year are still evolving. Nonalcoholic wines will go even more mainstream, with bigger selections in restaurants and even better-tasting examples as technology improves. Five large French companies are on the case, with giant Castel announcing an investment of €10 million ($11.8 million) in a no-alcohol production facility in the Loire Valley.White wines will keep outpacing reds; winegrowers in Sancerre even opened a new office in Bangkok in December. Wineries’ embrace of eco-ethics translates into expanding investment in regenerative farming, and the wine and health controversy and whether bottles should carry a cancer warning continues. Sales of wine may be down, but I’m more optimistic than my colleagues and reject a doom-and-gloom narrative. New data from the 2025 US Wine Consumer Benchmark Segmentation Study found Generation Z (born 1997 to 2012) has upped consumption over the past year, much in line with previous generations when they came of age, and millennials (1981 to 1996) have overtaken boomers to become the biggest wine-drinking cohort. .Wine bars and natural wine fairs are packed with those consumers. Vino is now part of pop culture and the sports world (check out Kendall-Jackson’s new NBA-label wines), as well as a main character in films such as the Netflix rom-com Champagne Problems. Season two of hit wine series Drops of God will drop on Jan. 21 on Apple TV.And as old ideas of fine wine rapidly shift, “make wine fun again” is the new zeitgeist. Here’s what else I see in my glass:You’ll be drinking more sparkling wine, from surprising placesChampagne sales are slumping, but fizz broadly has been less affected than the downturn affecting still wine in the US, the UK and France, where prosecco sales grew 12% last year. It turns out that millennials and Gen Z indulge in sparkling wine much more than boomers do, according to a survey of almost 5,000 US adults released in early December by the Wine Market Council, a US market research company.Why? Bubbly is now a lifestyle wine for every day, like rosé, something to sip with takeout Thai or Chinese. Not to mention that in a flute, fizz is wonderfully Instagrammable.Winemakers everywhere plan to cater to that thirst. You’ll see more options that bridge the price gap between Champagne and prosecco, such as French crémants, English sparklers, dry Lambrusco, and German and Austrian sekt. Look for the rise of fizz from new regions and from native grapes. I chalk it up to the draw of adventure, with small boutique producers perceived as more authentic, rather than giant Champagne brands such as Moët that seem more corporate. And with no limiting AOC rules like in Champagne, sparkling wine producers can use just about any type of grape, which means very different tastes as well.Production of Mt. Etna spumante bianco, using local Sicilian grapes such as grillo and catarratto, more than doubled between 2019 and 2024. Richard Geoffroy, former chef de cave of Dom Pérignon, released a tank-fermented sparkling wine from Corsica under the name Avvizzà in 2025; it’s made with a blend of three native-to-the-island grape varieties. California boutique bubbly’s new top spot is the Santa Rita Hills.You’ll head to wineries for adventure, not just tastingYounger wine lovers crave authenticity and immersive experiences, and more wineries will woo them with local adventures. The Global Wine Tourism Report 2025 found 73% of the 1,310 wineries in 47 countries they surveyed plan to expand their offered activities. (These now account for an average 25% of a winery’s revenue.)In South Africa, some estates offer outdoor fun by day, indulgent wine and food tastings by night. The mountain biking trails at Rhebokskloof Estatein Paarl are a mix of steep climbs and thrilling descents. Morgenhof Estate offers up quad biking in off-limit areas in Stellenbosch. And the Franschhoek Valley is a hot spot for paragliding and zip-lining, though not, I’m reassured, with a glass in hand. You’ll be hunting for valuesYes, billionaires are snapping up expensive Burgundies, but affordability and value for money will be 2026’s wine watchwords.Being adventurous will (mostly) get you the best deals, which means seeking out wines from less-well-known regions of Eastern Europe, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, especially those made from local grape varieties. For whites, think fragrant examples from Sicily’s grillo grapes and Spain’s godello. For reds, look for Greece’s light, chillable reds made from liatiko on Crete and bright, spicy touriga franca blend wines from Portugal’s Douro.And let’s not forget that California’s grape glut is inspiring new négociant labels, including Cam X, which “rescue” the leftovers from premium wineries and sell the vino without the famous name at rock-bottom prices.More dining spots will ditch the formal wine listShort, unfussy, hypercurated wine lists have been a thing, and the next trend in casual vibe dining is the no-written list. London’s Humble Grape locations have lists but encourage you to answer a few quick questions and let them do the matchmaking. At Canteen in Notting Hill, you just choose a glass of red or white from a keg.At the US’s cozy Sauced wine bars in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Nashville, it’s all personal interaction: You tell somms what you’re looking for, and they bring out a few choices for you to taste. Ditto at Les Enfants du Marché in Paris. Is this good news? Or not? It’s fun and easy, but maybe it’s not so satisfying for wine geeks.AI will be your virtual sommelier and Napa itinerary makerArtificial intelligence is reshaping how wine is grown and made, with AI-powered sensors and drones that monitor soil moisture and detect vine diseases before they spread, assess weather patterns and predict harvest times. In Bordeaux, AI-driven robots prune, weed and move grapes from sorting tables to fermentation vats.And next year AI will put its mark on oenotourism. The Napa Valley Marriott Hotel & Spa is the region’s first hotel to team up with Preferabli, the AI-driven wine recommendation software and its new Tastefuli app and integrate them into the hotel’s guest experiences. The idea is to offer personalized recommendations for food, wine and spirits, as well as winery tours based on guest profiles — a new form of concierge. More partnerships are coming in Napa and the bay area in early 2026, then throughout the West Coast and across North America. The UK is in the offing.Surely suggested winery visits will include the stunning, newly renovated Robert Mondavi winery opening in May, but bear in mind that the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported some AI limitations. ChatGPT, the Chronicle’s Jess Lander found, mostly steers visitors to well-known touristy spots. For hidden gem insider spots with chill vibes, you still need a human with knowledge.New-style wine bottles will take overA new Wild West of bottle sizes is coming. Until 2025, wine in the US could be legally sold only in a limited number of sizes, from airplane bottles to large formats named after biblical kings. Now there are 13 additional permitted sizes, mostly on the small side. The Estate Collection by the Glass Gift Set from Daou Vineyards, for example, offers three luxury red blends in 100-milliliter bottles, which look a bit like test tubes. I foresee cult cabs marketed in sophisticated little six-packs in a bid for affordability.But I still have many, many questionsWhat wine will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce pour at their wedding in June? Will chocolate-flavored reds like Nobile Rosso Dubai Chocolate catch on thanks to Gen Z’s current interest in sweet wine? Will we stop talking (please) about “mindful drinking”? And will this be the year zinfandel comes back?I’ll be covering all these stories and many more in 2026..© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.

2026 Wine trends: Sparkling adventures, AI sommeliers, and a thirst for value

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