Uh oh, if you are a fan of European wines, Eric Asimov, the chief wine critic over at the NY Times, says you better get ready to pay more. His recent article points out that while so far, price increases have been modest, that trend is not set to last given the rising price of oil and the deflating value of a dollar. Importers of European wines have been trying to keep the prices steady in order not to scare away fickle consumers but that may change in 2008.

What is bad news for Europe, Australia, South Africa and South America might just be good news for U.S. wineries. The article quotes Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library as saying this will be a big opportunity for California. I think that it's even a bigger opportunity for wineries in up and coming U.S. regions such as Oregon, Washington and New York. It may also inspire customers to find more obscure and less pricey European wines from places such as Hungary, Portugal and Slovenia which are still good values. The advice in the article might be distilled down to this: drink the stuff you know for now but be prepared to venture into new territory to find better values in 2008.