Vitis Issue 18 • Fall/Winter 2026

From our editor:

I was chatting with a winemaker the other day and, as it so often does lately, the conversation circled around to the future of wine. Specifically, how to sell it to a younger generation that doesn’t drink it. He sort of couldn’t see the point. “I mean,” he said, “I didn’t drink wine when I was in my early 20s and look at me now.”

Same, I thought.

Then I had another conversation, with another winemaker, about chasing trends. He pointed out that because wine takes so long to grow, make and age, by the time it’s ready to drink, the trend of the moment might well have come full circle right back to where you started.

So, he said, why worry about a fleeting fad? Why not keep doing what you do well, and just try to do it better?

For sure there’s plenty of uncertainty right now. Climate change is having a major impact on the wine industry and changing consumer habits are, too. But as our writer Christine Sismondo points out, “In its 8,000-year history, wine has seen its fair share of hard times and yet somehow managed to muddle through.”

I think sometimes we forget that wine has a superpower, and it’s maybe the most important one in this troubled world.

Nothing is better at bringing people together. It encourages us to gather and talk, to share a meal and maybe some ideas. Here we are, in the midst of a loneliness epidemic that is literally killing us, and the solution might be as easy as pouring a glass of your favorite red for a friend or, even a better, a stranger who one day might become one.

In a world where we are increasingly disconnected, wine helps forge connections. When we are finding it harder and harder to tell truth from lies, wine tells its authentic story with every sip—where it’s from, how it’s made, who produced it, what’s in it. And when trends last only days, if not hours, wine offers history, longevity, perspective.

That may be a lot of pressure to put on a beverage, but we know wine can handle it. After all, it’s had plenty of practice.