Top wine critic, Robert M Parker Jnr, has predicted that cases of top wines will be worth over US$10,000 in 10 years’ time.
In an extraordinary piece of crystal ball gazing for US magazine Food & Wine, the world’s foremost wine critic makes 12 predictions for the future of wine. Parker’s vision includes the increasing price of top wines, the dominance of screwcaps, the growth of Spanish and southern Italian wines, and the ascendancy of Argentinian Malbec.
The massive price increase envisaged by Parker is, he says, simply a supply and demand issue with increasing global interest in wines that can only go down in number.
Some of Parker’s predictions are even more provocative, saying that the Stelvin screwcap ‘will become the standard for the majority of the world’s wines’. Accordingly, cork-bottled wines will be a ‘minority’ in ten years’ time, but he reserves the harshest words for synthetic corks.
‘They do not work and can’t compete with Stelvin screwcaps,’ he says.
Parker sees Spain as the rising star and expects the country’s wines to continue on this trend in ever-improving quality. But he believes that by 2015, the major regions of Ribera del Duero and Rioja will fall behind up and coming regions such as Toro, Jumilla and Priorat.
Other regions to look for include southern Italy, Sardinia, and America’s Central Coast. New regions will also emerge including Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Mexico, China, Japan, Lebanon, Turkey and India. According to Parker, Argentinian Malbec is the wine to watch.
‘By 2015 this long-ignored grape’s place in the pantheon of noble wines will be guaranteed,’ he says.
Written by Oliver Styles
