There is a huge glut of wine grapes world-wide, and a slightly less-huge glut of cheap wine -- some of it quite good, some not so good. This causes lots of scope for arbitrage, in finding cheap wines made from the same grapes as more expensive wines. Vinification skills have improved so much in the past 20 years that there is little badly made wine now.

The wine trade has followed cheaper labour costs around the world; first to Australia and NZ, then to South Africa and South America. Successful vineyards will have to go one of 2 routes: lowest cost, or "terroir". I recently had this discussion with a famous wine maker, who commented that for the past decade he had used his skills to correct the "flaws" in a wine -- i.e. change the terroir characteristics to become whatever the market wanted. Now he has decided that is the wrong way, and in the future will use vinification to accentuate the terroir rather than suppress it or mold it. There is such a glut of grapes, of high quality, that he can pick and choose the grapes for the right terroir to match what the market wants. Which is great for the wine makers, not so great for the vineyard owners -- unless they happen to have the right terroir. In the long run this approach should improve all wines, if it becomes industry practice: the "right" varieties of grapes will be planted for each location, based on how they grow and not on what varieties are in demand. Eventually all vineyards will become first growth