It’s official: Cristal is our drink of the decade

Votes ranged from Jägermeister to pink Port as we struggled to keep up with the ever-growing list of nominations, but the biggest winners served to highlight the trends and changes which dominated the industry during the first 10 years of the 21st Century.

From the very start, the noughties set about blowing away the cobwebs left by the 90s. The RTD phenomenon, which resulted in young drinkers filling up on sweet pre-mixes such as Bacardi Breezers, started to look unsuitable and irresponsible off the back of increased self-regulation by the industry, most notably in the UK from the Portman Group.

We saw a major paradigm shift as the industry started to take a much more responsible stance when it came to marketing and health issues, and as such we started to see more “mature” drinks make their way back to the top of the tree.

In place of RTDs we saw the emergence of off-dry rosé and cider-over-ice to satisfy the craving of sweet-toothed drinkers. Magners and Gallo’s White Grenache, as well as Blossom Hill did more than most to aid the growth of these two categories.

Patrón Tequila, with the fastest-growing sales of any Tequila brand in the US, will look back on the decade with great fondness, particularly seeing as the brand was only born in 1989.

In wine terms, no brand grew more in the noughties than Yellowtail. Aided by its memorable logo of a yellow-footed rock wallaby, Yellowtail saw sales rise from 112,000 cases in 2001 to 7.5m by 2005 – a quite astonishing rate of growth.

Then there was Charles Shaw – better known as “Two Buck Chuck” because the wines retailed for $1.99 – which became one of the biggest wine brands in the US by 2003, selling exclusively through the Trader Joe’s chain of stores.

More widespread however was the sudden flood of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc at drinks and dinner parties. With memorable brands and even more memorable aromas, this grape, when grown in New Zealand’s Marlborough region, took on a seemingly unstoppable following. 

 

At the other end of the aroma spectrum was Pinot Grigio. This one grape, particularly from northern Italy, despite – or perhaps because of – its near neutral taste and smell became the drink of choice among UK wine-drinking pub goers. 

But the noughties will ultimately be remembered for taking us to economic extremes. It was a decade of boom-and-bust and nothing captured the spirit of extravagance during the boom years than Louis Roederer’s flagship Champagne brand Cristal.

The gold-labelled fizz was as much a status symbol as it was a drink during the good times as bankers and high-flyers everywhere toasted their successes with the popping of corks.

Even now, as the world tries to dust itself down and get back on its feet, we still turn to Champagne for celebrations – although of a somewhat cheaper nature – and Cristal’s symbolic resonance has led us to judge it as the Drink of the Decade.

The next ten years will no doubt throw us in many new directions and it’s going to be fascinating to see which brands emerge strongest from the global downturn.

We will also see even more responsibility from producers as the voice of the health lobby grows increasingly louder, and consumer trends are bound to bring us some new fads and favourites. Whatever happens, it’s going to be fun.

See the drinks business Trends Report for more insight into recent phenomenons and forecast fads for the year ahead. 

Alan Lodge, 06.01.10