I think that the wine industry is up against some serious headwinds over the next 10-20 years. I’m lucky enough to remember when first growths were $25 and average people could afford a bottle or two. Now they push $1K a bottle and up. Younger generations are moving away from wine into novelty cocktails or sake or beers, and some health experts say any alcohol is detrimental to health. Tariffs are supposed to get Americans to drink American wines? Who is going to pick the grapes in this new burgeoning industry? Opus One on a restaurant wine list is $1K. It’s a complicated question and I have no idea how it will play out except that I think we will reach a point where almost no one will want to spend this kind of money on wine any more.
Maybe that will result in the much needed price correction. The $80 wines were never worth $500 to begin with,
His basketball career should have been so much greater.
Thanks to proposed wholesale deportations, the wineries will be paying a lot more for labor, which in itself will probably equal the cost of tariffs.
So good news for everyone. 
When I look at my grossly overstocked 1200 bottle cellar, I mumble what a genius I was to collect all this wine before tarries and migrant deportations.
This is really the central question, isn’t it? Do I:
a) Look at my grossly overstocked cellar, stop buying when all the prices shoot up, and congratulate myself for stockpiling so much stuff beforehand; or
b) Use the coming calamaties as an excuse to buy even more wine now even though I have no room to store it?
Decisions, decisions…
What little wine I had in Europe, I rushed to make sure everything was delivered by early January.
If anyone is buying wine direct, from importers, cellar door etc, if the bottles are mature, I’d pay rush charges to have the wines shipped.
Else. if the wines are young, if you’re OK waiting, I’m sure everyone across the pond will store for free, as they understand the situation and would prefer selling the wines sooner than later.
Remember that it needs to clear customs. That’s not an instantaneous process. Just add some safety margin.
Just heard my next pallet will be on the water next week. Been working on getting the last cases picked up for the last couple of months, so really glad I was able to get it scheduled as I’m sure they are going to be slammed for the next couple of months. I was planning for anothet pallet in the Spring, but we’ll see. Hopefully other more pressing matters like Mexico and Canada(?) take priority over wine…
It’s not likely to be a wine specific tariff. It’s probably going to be a blanket tariff on the products of any country that isn’t sufficiently deferential.
Right - so buy more than just wine!
(But to a post above the goal doesn’t seem to be to promote American wines)
Just ordered our expected next six months of demand for champagne. Our distributor rep will enjoy the early commissions’ 
. The way prices have been increasing on champagne, we don’t need another 10%. Just holding as normal on everything else.
I always buy lots of wine before inaugurals. It makes tolerating the winner more pleasant and this one won’t be pleasant for me. And I buy foreign and domestic though more domestic.
Not large potatoes, but it did occur to me that as I was ordering more of the teas I am low on, from Upton Tea during their Black Friday sale, I should go extra heavy on those of Chinese origin, so I doubled up on a few of those. Interesting times.
Yes, I would say this is very true. That said, there’s a pretty discernible cutoff between interest for US from wine producing nations and the rest. Hence I have no problem selling my wines to the UK, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. German importers showed some interest before Covid, but it has been zero interest from southern European countries. And who can blame them really - they have great stuff right there, why go anywhere else?
That said, like with everything you sell it’s about context, I do think US wine could do better there if it was just introduced the right way. I also noticed from my Italian father just how suspicious and clueless he was about American wine - I don’t think he even knew they made much wine here at all. He drinks wine everyday, but is not a wine collector, so he’d never even heard of the most famous brands here. I made a point of only serving him the best CA stuff when he came to visit and I think he was pretty impressed with them.
Italy and France at least have very regionalized wine offerings, it seems to me. Not just at the national border, but if you’re in Piedmont, there isn’t even a lot of other Italian wine from outside that region. I don’t mean zero or almost zero, or that a collector couldn’t source things from around Europe, but the general focus at retail and in restaurants is very close in.
Champagne is always an exception, that has real presence in every market.
I haven’t been to Spain, it sounds like they’re more open to wines from all over, at least in the major markets?
I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Spain, I’m sure other board members are more expert.
I think most Spanish wine stores and restaurants focus more heavily on the country as a whole and less so on their own regions than stores and restaurants in France and Italy. I also think that outside of Barcelona and Madrid, the selection of wines from other countries tends to be quite limited… except for Champagne.
Trump adds Europe to the list of US trade partners he’s threatening with tariffs
I think this from the article sums it up pretty well.
“What we really need to chalk all of this up to is Trump laying the groundwork for future negotiations,” Lincicome said. “This is for better or worse a lot of what we’re going to see for the next four years.”