Between duties and Covid, the import of wine in the U.S. at -329 million dollars

A sharp loss of -12.3% in value, equal to a drop of 329 million dollars: this is the steep amount of the seven months of wine imports into the U.S. between November 2019, the first full month of application of duties on many European wines, especially French, by the U.S., and May 2020, with the weight of the pandemic that, in the U.S., is still in full force, on the period November 2018-May 2019. To calculate this, the Spanish Wine Market Observatory, in the days in which the fear of new duties from the U.S. on many European products, including food and wine, returns to hover in an already evidently critical situation (and this time as a retaliation on the issue of the Digital Tax that several EU countries, including Italy, are thinking of applying and that would affect companies in Silicon Valley, ed.)
During the period in question, the USA imported a total of 409 million liters of bottled wines (-5.3), for a total value of 2.34 billion dollars, with an average price per liter that fell by 7.4% (from 6.2 to 5.7 dollars per liter). The loss in value is almost all on the shoulders of France, which lost 289.5 million dollars out of a total negative balance of 329 million dollars, with a drop of -36% (accelerated especially in March, April and May 2020, with losses between -46% and -56% month on month on 2019).
Among the main exporters in the U.S., down also Spain (-8%, to -12.1 million dollars), Australia (-14.4% for a loss of 25 million dollars) and Argentina (-2%, with a negative balance of 3 million dollars). All in all, Italy is holding up, which, in the period under review, according to Oemv, with bottled wines achieved a growth of 2.7%, with an increase of 22.9 million dollars, and New Zealand is also growing, at +8%, with a positive balance of 17.8 million dollars.
The situation is more or less similar in terms of quantities, with France falling by -19%, Italy holding at -0.6%, Spain losing by -7.4%, Argentina by +3.4%, and New Zealand, the only one of the main exporters in the USA to grow in volume and value, at +7.9% in quantity.
But, in addition to the overall figure, on which, in addition to duties, as mentioned, the reduction in consumption outside the home imposed in the many U.S. States by the Covid emergency also weighs heavily, with part of the consumption that, as in the rest of the world, has shifted between the home, but turning, it seems, to cheaper wines, at least according to the values of important wines. Here too, France is among the countries most affected, with a loss of 21%, and an average price per liter, however high, dropped from $8.8 to $7.7. A downward trend in prices that seem destined to weigh on for a while, at least looking only at the data of more 2020o: in the same month of 2019, the U.S. imported more wine in quantity (+1.3%) but left 150 million dollars less (-26.3%), with the average price that, month after month, fell from $ 6.5 to $ 4.7 per liter.