These days, consumers are more curious, open-minded and less brand-loyal than ever. They might drink a Japanese whisky on Monday, a craft gin on Tuesday, new-wave non-alcohols on Wednesday and Thursday, before finishing the week off with a grower champagne. It’s all a bit of a challenge for traditional brands – but also an opportunity to attract different types of consumers, and tap into (or even create) different occasions.
In the world of wine, Burgundy and Bordeaux are seeing their pre-eminence challenged by Italy, Champagne and the New World. The people driving this are HNW individuals who, in many cases, weren’t born into a family with an account at Berry Bros. They love the icons – but you might equally find them drinking a secret-handshake natural wine with a cheese toastie at Sager + Wilde in east London.
Over and above this, luxury consumers are demanding more transparency, traceability and information. Pioneering innovations like the scannable Krug ID – which provides in-depth information on the vintage conditions, vinification and composition of each edition of the Grand Cuvée – are now widespread in champagne.
Elsewhere, whisky and cognac are increasingly speaking a language like wine. Terms like ‘single vineyard’, ‘vintage’ and ‘grand cru’ are now much more widespread at the top-end. Waterford, for example, is a new Irish whisky company that distils single-origin single malts from barley grown on different plots around Ireland, in a bid to prove whisky can have as much terroir variation as wine.
High-end rum producers, meanwhile, are targeting those same whisky aficionados with limited-edition releases: single-cask, vintage, cask-strength and indeed different cask types. The Exceptional Cask Selection from Foursquare in Barbados is particularly outstanding. While independent bottlings – a rarefied category of collectables common in whisky – are also becoming more sought-after in rum.
Read Alice's key drinks industry predictions for 2022 in the Walpole Luxury Trend Report below.
