Greg Sherwood MW: Can wine still help us feel more human?

“Wine has always meant more than what’s in the glass. Across cultures and centuries, it’s helped us mark transitions, carry memories, create rhythm, and connect. It has been sacred and social, ceremonial and political. Those meanings didn’t come from branding. They came from how people used wine to give weight to moments. But that kind of meaning relied on structure. Mealtimes. Shared time. Rhythms of work and rest. Traditions repeated often enough to become second nature. Wine didn’t create those things. It responded to them. It helped shape them. It gave them texture.”

This snippet comes from a short, incisive article by Matt Deller MW, CEO of Wirra Wirra Winery in Australia. Fast becoming a leading thought architect on how to reimagine and restructure the future of fine wine – not just in Australia but globally – Deller’s words prompted me to think well beyond the usual gripes about demographics, economics, and geopolitics that dominate industry discourse.

The essence of Deller’s article lies in a fundamental question: What happens to wine when the structure so embedded in our cultural fabric begins to fade, slip, or recede? For those of us who’ve spent most of our adult lives in the trade, it’s a sobering thought – yet also an intellectually stimulating and necessary one.

Much of the current analysis around the global wine industry’s malaise fixates on the usual suspects: the generational cohort that doesn’t drink; the unaffordability of fine wine; the rise of mainstream wellness culture; and the failure to market wine compellingly to new consumers. Take your pick – and feel free to add a few more.

What makes Deller’s piece different is that he looks beyond these headlines and into the deeper cultural shifts that are quietly altering wine’s role in modern life. One such shift – close to my own heart and a topic I’ve explored in past columns – is the evolving relationship between wine and food, and how rituals around mealtimes have changed dramatically over the past 15 to 20 years.

Millennials and Gen Z appear far more focused on food-driven, experiential socialising than we Gen Xers, who were content to gather at the pub and knock back drinks – with or without food. But as Deller rightly points out, meals today are more often consumed solo, in front of a screen. The household “mealtime gong” – among flatmates, families, or friends – has all but disappeared. We are living more isolated, solitary lives… and not to our benefit.

And it’s no better during the day. Working from home, fragmented office culture, long hours, and the near-taboo of daytime drinking have killed off the kind of business lunch that once sustained restaurants and wine sales alike. A non-trade friend recently remarked that alcohol consumption of any kind during a work lunchtime is either actively discouraged or band outright.

From lavish banker blowouts in the City of London, where tens of thousands of pounds were dropped on celebratory lunches, to the classic French wine lunch cast in stone – little has escaped the wider cultural swing away from wine and alcohol consumption during the working day.

Since we spend the bulk of our waking hours either at work or socialising after it, Deller asks whether wine is simply becoming another passive artefact of a fragmented lifestyle. Or does it still hold the power to offer something different? After all, wine was never just something to quench thirst – it has always meant something more: a symbol of welcome, of connection, of shared humanity.

Modern life in the UK, turbocharged by technology and AI, has become even faster. In chasing efficiency, we’ve lost touch with many of the small rituals that once gave our lives warmth and shape. This is precisely what the ‘Slow Food’ movement warned about when it sprang up in 1986 as a reaction to McDonald’s opening on the Piazza di Spagna in Rome.

We also shouldn’t ignore the role that changing demographics – especially in large UK cities – play in shifting consumption patterns. The rise of religious and cultural populations that abstain from alcohol is reshaping hospitality landscapes in ways the industry can’t afford to overlook. A potentially sensitive topic, yes – but an important and increasingly relevant one.

It’s not one single cause but an accumulation of socio-economic and cultural factors that are changing the wine landscape, perhaps irreversibly. The cost-of-living crisis, the rising price of fine wine, and the disconnect between younger consumers and traditional wine culture all play a role. But equally, their modern lifestyles simply don’t offer the same frequency – or social permission – to drink wine in meaningful ways.

And yet, Deller’s question lingers: “The past doesn’t need to come back. What people are looking for is something that slows things down and makes the moment feel real.” Can wine still do that – still offer grounding, still cut through the blur, still make us feel more human? Let’s hope so.

• Greg Sherwood was born in Pretoria, South Africa, and as the son of a career diplomat, spent his first 21 years traveling the globe with his parents. With a Business Management and Marketing degree from Webster University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, Sherwood began his working career as a commodity trader. In 2000, he decided to make more of a long-held interest in wine taking a position at Handford Wines in South Kensington, London, working his way up to the position of Senior Wine Buyer over 22 years. Sherwood currently consults to a number of top fine wine merchants in London while always keeping one eye firmly on the South African wine industry. He qualified as the 303rd Master of Wine in 2007.