If Burgundy gives up the crown, it won’t be to Bordeaux IMO. It’ll likely be to somewhere in Germany (it’s unclear to me where exactly) and it won’t be for some time.
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Or perhaps even England?
From what I am hearing from a number of sources, the 2022 vintage is small and very high quality. They are expecting a significant price increase en primeur. I am wary of vintage because of the heat, but we will see.
Why Germany? Just because they’re further north? They aren’t even making the 2nd best Pinots currently imo.
It doesn’t have to be the same grape, just as Burgundy and Bordeaux don’t use the same grapes, nor are they even the same sort of styles.
Location is central to thinking it’ll be Germany, of course, but there are other factors: their classification is terroir based like Burgundy’s and their wines seem more compatible to where food trends have brought us and where I think they’re heading.
I think (and of course I could be wrong) that ageable whites that transmit terroir well will be more desirable than heavier reds in the future. They will dominate alongside sparklers and medium weight reds like Pinot Noir that does’t break 13.5% ABV mark.
I think that points to Germany but it could be somewhere else. Maybe Oregon, maybe colder areas of California, maybe Alto Piemonte or New Zealand or Switzerland, even Galicia could be a dark horse. Germany seems the likeliest to me. I’m happy to hear your thoughts.
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I think Oregon is much more likely than Germany.
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Seems to me that the best areas for Pinot Noir outside the Cote d’Or and Champagne are the Cotes Chalonnaise and Sancere (based on Cotat).
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I guess I think that we are beneficiaries of the classified growth system. Yes it is bad for producers and for people who do not know that much about wines. But, all of what you are talking about creates distortions - overpriced wines and underpriced wines. For those of us who spend a lot of time on this board, etc., we can avoid the overpriced wines and grab the underpriced ones. Look at all the recommendations on this thread alone about overachievers at properties that are not even classified wines.
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I’m a fan of Oregon wines, but they have been contending with climate change as much as anywhere; the ripe solar vintages from 14’ onwards blotted out a sense of terroir and complexity even for many good winemakers (to me).
And then there were the wildfires…
There is definitely good and interesting wine being made out there, but for me the annual simplistic sameness of big fruit/high alcohol in many a bottle was one factor that turned me towards Burgundy.
I think @Guillermo_M makes a good case for Germany as a strong contender too for the next big thing.
The fashion trend has to cycle through the Loire before attention turns back to Bordeaux.
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And Switzerland (home bias here). You should check out what Jacques Tatasciore is doing (unfortunately secondary market prices have catched up like in Burgundy).
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I thought Germany would be next three years ago, and prices would go up, so I bought a lot of Prum 2019, so I wouldn’t have to buy in the secondary market. I needn’t have worried; prices still stable, and the wines are fantastic for relatively early drinking.
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Love the 19s. “The angels sang” at a local Szechuan joint courtesy of a few wine pirates in the ATL who showed up with some German thang called “Prum”.
I think predicting future trends is quite hard, especially since most people who are not in the business tend to forecast the popularity of things they generally tend to be interested in. Personally, I don’t see Germany as being the “next big thing” for various reasons, in part because I’ve not been impressed by most German pinot, but I could very well be wrong! I’m also not sure there has to be a “next big region”, really. The next big things can be on a producer by producer basis, given the greater ability of consumers to discover individual producers.
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This is exactly my thought.
I also think people get their wine info from so many different sources now a day, that we will see a more segmented market gravitate towards different types of wines, regions, grapes and styles.
Most of my wine friends get their info from Instagram accounts these days. Not sure they even know who William Kelley is as an example.
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I was just thinking about this the other day, because a friend brought some Comando G to dinner. The Rumba al Norte was lovely, but I’m not running out to buy more Sierra de Gredos wines that aren’t Comando G. There are other wines like this - it reminds me of natural wine bars, where what’s on the list can be from anywhere.
And it doesn’t surprise me many of your wine friends don’t know who William is based on what I see in wine bars in Europe. Unless they get bitten by the Burgundy bug, of course (or higher end Champagne).
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If they missed William’s excellent videos on instagram, are they really using instagram to inform themselves about wine? Now I am curious to know who the top 3 “influencers” Lasse’s friends are following 
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ig: Looks_Like_Mud_But_I_Swear_It_Is_Just_Natural_Wine
ig: Natural_wine_lovers
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Don’t get me wrong, I think William is absolutely brillant. But his content about terrior and winemaking methods, and so on, is rather geeky and not for everyone. And he drinks wine we could never get our hands on.
I have friends who is as geeky as me, but also know people, who also hunts wine, that just wants to know the basics.
A lot of them (including myself) follows a lot of wine people, restaurants, importers, winebars and so on from our local area (and country… Denmark is tiny). I think thats what influences most of them.
It was a bit tongue in cheek, especially the first but I think you are quite spot on. That’s what I would expected for any market regardless of it being US or Europe.
Then of course the trends in various countries/regions might be different. Denmark is often quite fast in catching new trends and what’s hot or not (on a relatively larger scale).
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