Is wine quietly getting sweeter?

This piece in The Drinks Business on back sweetening is a fascinating one, not least because it taps into a much bigger conversation around wine, accessibility and changing consumer tastes.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, back sweetening is the process of adding sweetness to a wine after fermentation, but before bottling. It is not new, but what's interesting is the suggestion that sweeter, softer and more approachable table wines are gaining more momentum, particularly at entry level.

Wine has spent a long time asking consumers to meet it on its own terms: learn the language, understand the region, decode the label, then feel confident enough to choose a bottle.

For more casual drinkers, particularly younger consumers, that can feel like hard work. If a softer, fruitier, more immediately approachable wine helps bring people into the category, it is easy to see why producers and regions are thinking like this.

With brands, retailers and communicators, this is not just about winemaking, it is a consumer expectation discussion.

People do not need every wine to be serious, traditional or complex. They do need to know what they are buying, why it tastes the way it does, and where it fits in their lives.

Making wine more approachable is not the same as making it less interesting. Done well, it could be one of the ways the category brings more people in.