After a pronounced 20% drop in wine sales over the past five years, mainly due to a change in consumer preferences affected by the high cost of living, the arrival of the harvest season is accompanied by an increasingly difficult question to answer for California growers: Who will buy the grapes?
According to data from First Citizens Bank on the country’s wine industry, in recent years, sales of wine boxes in the United States decreased from 427 million in 2020 to 329 million recorded last year, representing a drop of up to 23%.
According to the bank’s report, total expenditure on wine decreased from $94 billion to $74 billion; this indicates a drop of 22%, and is that this pronounced decline responds to several factors, including a change in consumption habits, especially among the younger generations, who opt for another type of beverage. The high cost of living has also hampered the purchases of the average population, who in recent years have reduced their discretionary spending.
On the other hand, the high production of recent years has left surpluses in the cellars, which has caused producers to receive lower offers, which fail to cover the high costs of cultivation, harvest, labor and machinery, and is forcing many viticultors to kick off vineyards that have been growing with their families for years and replace them with other crops of greater demand.
But, the current problem is not limited to only the owners of these crops; temporary workers for the crops, agricultural contractors, carriers, packers, processing plants, cellars and restaurants are also being affected.
One of the solutions would be to export the surplus of inventory; however, the United States is not the only country that has recorded a drop in wine consumption. According to the International Wine and Vine Organization, from 2018 to 2025 there has been a decline in global consumption of up to 14% in countries in Europe and Asia.
