What will matter most to the wine industry over the next 12 to 18 months? That’s the question this special mid-year edition of Bold Predictions puts to four people who spend their working lives measuring it. Rob McMillan, EVP, Founder & Principal Brand Strategist of Silicon Valley Bank’s Wine Division, has been arguing since 2017 that this isn’t a downturn but a different marketplace — and he says the industry has finally caught up to him. What he does with that agreement is the interesting part.
Robert Eyler, Ph.D., Professor of Economics at Sonoma State University, opens on a consumer economy split in two, then goes looking for another industry moving through the same structural shift wine is. He can name only one, and it isn’t the comparison you’d guess. Glenn Proctor, Partner & Owner at Ciatti, reads the grape and bulk market against that backdrop and lands on a harder question than whether we’re bottoming: “how’s the plane going to land, and how is it going to take off again.” Michelle Muth, Principal at Baker Tilly, works with producers across every size band, which gives her a clean view of what the brands holding up are doing that the others aren’t.
McMillan came into his direct-to-consumer research hoping to find a secret — he split the top performers from the bottom expecting the winners to be doing something nobody else was. What the data actually showed him sent him somewhere else entirely, to an idea he’s floated for a decade and says almost everyone has misheard. Moderator George Christie of Wine Industry Network presses each panelist for the signal they’re personally watching, then turns them loose for the bold predictions round. Skip it and you’re forecasting your 2027 without their numbers in front of you.
What you’ll find out
- Which single US industry sector Eyler can point to as genuinely structurally changed — and why wine’s situation still looks distinct
- What McMillan found when he separated the top-quartile DTC performers from the bottom, and why the result wasn’t the secret he was hunting for
- Where McMillan says the consumers with money and appetite actually are — and the out-of-the-box move he’d make if he were running a winery’s direct business
- The inventory and acreage signals Proctor is watching to judge whether supply-side behavior has really changed, and why he thinks survival now precedes participation
- What Muth sees the successful producers doing differently across winery sizes — practices and technology included
The full session — a mid-year read on the forces reshaping the market, and four on-the-record predictions for 2027 — is now available to watch on demand on the Wine Industry Network YouTube channel.
