U.S., wine sales fall, but imports rise, partly due to fear of duties

In the hours when Donald Trump re-enters the White House as the 47th President of the United States (the world's top wine market), on “Inauguration Day” staged today in Washington DC, in the presence of many of the world's heads of state and government, including Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, the European wine industry (and not only wine) looks with concern at the duties threatened by the US President himself in the election campaign, already introduced in his previous presidency, when, however, Italian wines were saved.
But there is speculation from many quarters that, now as then, some importers have been anticipating orders in order to cope with the market in the coming months, avoiding possible problems (and also thanks to the advantages of a Euro that has lost some ground on the Dollar in recent weeks, making European products more attractive). This would also explain the discrepancy between U.S. wine sales figures and imports. According to the report of “SipSource”, the tool for tracking what comes out of U.S. warehouses and ends up on the market of the “Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America”, reported by Nbc, in 2024 there was a -6.2% in value and -7.2% in volume, in wine sales. A trend from which Italian wine seems to be “immune”, which is the leader among imported wines (worth more than a third of the U.S. wine market) that, according to Istat data on the first 10 months of 2024 analyzed by WineNews, grew in value by +8.2%, to 1.59 billion euros, much better than the Italian average (+5.7%).
Only in the coming months, then, will it become clear whether the Italian figure, as has happened in the past, is “boosted” by the fear of duties, or whether indeed tricolor labels, among the most beloved by Americans, have an edge. And most importantly, in the coming hours, it will become clear whether, with the duties, Trump is serious or not.