I want wine that screams where it came from

Demand for wine has skyrocketed with increasing affluence and large segments of the population in various countries are exposed to wine in their daily lives. There's an educating process going on - just think of the working clbutt in England or rednecks in Pennsylvania. The potential market volume is huge and vintners best bet is to supply neophytes with easy but good wine. They'll stick with the easy names and go for the recognizable tastes.

Next step will be to demand 'better' wine, with more oomph, i.e. concentrated, alcoholic, chewable wine... That's where Parker comes in... A bit unfair to blame him, though. He specializes in Bordeaux and has rightly critiziced the poor wines made there (and praised the good ones, mind you). No wonder that many vintners scramble to please his tastes utilizing every means to make as much powerful wine as possible (instead of reducing yields, for one thing).

Finally, you get tired from the overblown monstrosities and start to explore nuances, varieties, complexity, interplay of flavors and the effects of terroir and aging.

Let's face it - only a minor part of the population will ever want to reach that level, but 5 per cent of 3 billion people are after all 150 million - there is bound to be a big increase in the supply of wines with individuality, eventually.