The Good Old Days of Wineries' Worries

Wineries and the grape growers are worried. Yes, many small businesses have things to worry about. Grape growers are farmers so are always worried and the weather, government policies, and almost everything else.

Current Worries

The U.S. government has decided any amount of alcohol is bad. This has been a moving target and continues to be. The timing for this statement is never good, but it's an added worry in a market with plenty of problems already.

Wine demand is dropping and suddenly, there are too many vineyards. This issue is worldwide. Why demand is dropping isn't even agreed on yet or even if it's temporary or permanent, so there's no way to counter the issue.

Tariffs are meddling with every business, and wine is no different. The top countries exporting to the U.S. are France, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, and Australia. The U.S. is the sixth-largest exporter of wine at an annual value of $1.2 billion. Once the tariffs go away, will this market ever recover?

Inflation continues to be a worry and tariffs aren't helping. Lower demand for wine puts pressure on sellers to lower prices, while inflation and tariffs put pressure to raise prices.

Older Worries. This Ain't Nothin' New

1980s

• The '80s had an anti-alcohol movement spawned by the Reagan administration and general conservatism.
• The 1985 scandal of glycol found in Austrian wines was worldwide news and caused a lack of general trust with the industry. Austria saw their export market collapse, taking many years to recover.
• Pierce's Disease, a bacterial infection, has been in California as long as there have been grapes. It saw a significant increase in the '80s probably because of the proliferation of vineyards in proximity to one another. The disease is spread by certain flying insects.

1990s

• A massive boom in the number of wineries in California caused worry that we were overbuilding at a time of rising imports.
• Phylloxera, that bug that wiped out vineyards en masse in the late 19th century, was back. Napa was hit especially hard. There was lots of expensive replanting.

2000s

• Merlot, that darling for a few years, was out, and Pinot Noir was in, leading to a rush to plant Pinot Noir; more expense for the industry that was passed on to consumers.
• Hard seltzers became a thing, and wine folks assumed they were taking market share from their product.
• The 2008 financial crisis took a big bite out of wine travel and premium wine sales.

2010s

• Climate change becomes an issue as the vineyards are showing the effects. This is the decade when I first noticed unusual weather patterns in Sonoma County, like drought and more intense heat patterns.
• Organically grown, organic wine, biodynamic, sustainably farmed terms are thrown out on a confused public.
• Wildfires were the big story in the last few years of the decade. Napa and Sonoma had significant issues with grapes still on the vines, not to mention losing homes, wineries and people. This problem hasn't gone away, but people and governments are getting smarter at prevention.

It's not that the current issues aren't serious. It's just that the industry has always had problems to work through with their grape growers, with the government, or just by changing how they do things.