As the global wine industry gathers in Paris next week the mood is markedly different from just a few years ago. Producers, merchants and investors alike are navigating a market shaped less by growth narratives and more by structural recalibration.
Fero (formerly Ferovinum) will be attending Wine Paris 2026 with an expanded wine team, including Barry Dick MW, head of wine and Olly Lawson, wine account executive, who both joined the Fero ranks in October 2025. Both bring a wealth of wine industry experience to the team, with Barry Dick previously having held the role of BWS global bulk wine sourcing manager at Waitrose and Olly Lawson having been at Liv-ex, the global fine wine platform.
Reflecting on his decision to join Fero, Barry Dick MW notes that the appeal lay in the practicality of the model and its relevance to the current market.
“The wine industry has always required large amounts of working capital – and I have seen this when I worked in production as well as in buying roles. The pressure on balance sheets today is very real,” he says. “What interested me about Fero is its clear understanding of how value is created and held in wine – and how that value can be supported more intelligently through the cycle, rather than forced out at the wrong moment. This model could be powerful for several different players in the value creation chain as well as a real game-changer that is needed now.”
Lawson agrees: “One of the few upsides of a challenging trading environment is it makes innovation an imperative. Fero’s working capital model is one of the most exciting innovations I’ve seen built for the drinks industry, and could not be better timed. As wine businesses of all sizes look to adapt, here is a solution – proven in a myriad of other markets – that unlocks the latent value trapped in the current ways of working.”
The focus for the Fero team this year at Wine Paris is not simply on presenting a new model, but on listening and speaking with producers from across established and emerging regions, to better understand how local challenges are intersecting with global pressures.
A market under strain
There is little debate the wine industry is facing significant headwinds. Demand softness across key mature markets has collided with years of accumulated inventory, tying up cashflow at a time when the cost of accessing working capital has risen. At the same time, producers are contending with higher input costs, ongoing climate volatility, labour constraints and increased complexity in global trade.
For many, the result is a growing mismatch between long production cycles and shorter-term liquidity needs. Stock remains the industry’s greatest asset – but also, increasingly, its greatest constraint.
What is striking is how unevenly these pressures are being felt. While some regions are grappling with oversupply and margin compression, others face the opposite challenge: constrained volumes, rising demand in specific channels and limited access to capital to invest through the cycle. The global wine market is fragmenting and “one-size-fits-all” solutions are proving insufficient.
The shift from growth to resilience
In this environment, conversations are changing. Producers are less focused on expansion for its own sake and more concerned with resilience: how to protect long-term value, manage balance sheets more effectively and retain strategic optionality in an uncertain market.
This shift is not about retrenchment. Rather, it reflects a more disciplined approach to capital and risk – one that recognises that volatility is no longer an exception, but a feature of the industry.
We are seeing growing interest in alternative funding structures, more flexible approaches to inventory management and models that allow producers to unlock capital without forcing premature sales or diluting brand equity. The question many are asking is not whether change is needed, but how to adapt without undermining what makes their business distinctive.
We expect that at Wine Paris, while driving sales for producers will be the name of the game, the importance of out of the box or new solutions to the drinks industry and looking at how leaders can adapt, will be critical.
Opportunity in transition
Periods of disruption inevitably create opportunity. As weaker balance sheets are exposed, well-capitalised and strategically-minded producers are finding chances to invest, acquire and reposition for the next phase of the market. At the same time, new commercial models are emerging to bridge the gap between traditional financing and the realities of the wine and spirits trade.
What makes Wine Paris 2026 particularly important is its role as a meeting point for these conversations across borders. Challenges that once appeared region-specific – from inventory funding in Europe to distribution complexity in Asia or working-capital constraints in the US – are increasingly interconnected.
Understanding these nuances, and how global capital can work more effectively with long-term agricultural assets, will be central to the industry’s evolution over the coming years.
Looking to Wine Paris and beyond
As Fero heads to Paris, the priority is dialogue: speaking to producers in different regions and seeing how they are responding, where existing systems are falling short and what practical solutions are gaining traction on the ground.
The wine industry has weathered structural change before. While the current headwinds are real and persistent, they are also forcing a long-overdue reassessment of how value is funded, stored and realised across the supply chain.
Wine Paris 2026 will not provide easy answers – but it will offer a clear view of the questions that matter most right now.
If you are interested in having a chat with the Fero team at Wine Paris please do get in touch. Please email us at info@ferodrinks.com and we can set something up.
