It started with a simple prompt: “Wine people of the world! What do you think are the newest wine trends we will see in 2022?”
Then it kind of descended into chaos.
“Well, 2021 ended with an Oreo red wine so I’m seeing a full Nabisco line of wine crossovers,” penned u/Dravin84, distinguished with the label of “wino.” “Triscuit Traminette, Chicken in a Biscuit Bobal, Chips Ahoy Albariño, Fig Newton Nero d’Avola, Pinwheel Pinot Noir, and of course Ritz Riesling.”
The prompt was posted Jan. 11 by David_Bowies_Drugs on Reddit, and within 22 hours had garnered 223 individual predictions and comments. Some were practical, with assumptions such as seeing a decrease in popularity for funky skin contact whites or the rise of good wines in alternate packaging — others were more grandiose shots in the dark.
“Bordeaux will have the vintage of the century,” posted TheRealVinosity.
“I’ve lost count of how many Bordeaux vintages of the century there have been,” replied vinidiot.
The wine subreddit (r/wine), as of publication, has over 168 thousand members and has been running since 2008. Users on the forum typically post photos of boast-worthy bottles or ask for recommendations, giving wine enthusiasts the opportunity to casually flex their muscles. But every now and again, users let a little bit loose to poke fun at the industry, like pointing out the absurdity of junk food collaborations or the trivial nature of some ranking systems.
Here are 10 of the best 2022 trend predictions we saw in this r/wine thread, but there are hundreds of other predictions and musings in the subreddit itself.
- Branded wines, a la Barefoot Oreo Thins, submitted by Dravin84.
- Bordeaux will have the vintage of the century, submitted by TheRealVinosity.
- Forget 100 point wines- get ready for 102 points! Submitted by Fuddle.
- Half bottles, submitted by thecookingdj.
- Lambrusco, submitted by search64.
- Screw caps on young drinking wines, submitted by jafiswert.
- Lighter-weight bottles, more twist tops, and more good boxed wines, submitted by Thesorus.
- Lots of companies pushing sparkling rose, submitted by fruedma.
- A downturn in skin contact whites, submitted by JonnyMontrachet.
- Cava revival to go mainstream, submitted by thinkismella_rat.