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Comment by randycupertino | Hacker News Reader

TLDR: Americans are drinking less wine overall, especially on the low to mid market side, and small producers have been hit the hardest. People have been likely switching to things like hard seltzers and other alternatives. "Millennials are killing the wine industry" is more like "millennials are choosing less wine and higher end things when they do." Mid to high end market is doing find.

Sonoma is definitely slow right now, and Napa has less foot traffic.

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They're feeling double pressure in the low to mid market because French and Italian wineries have started selling cheaper and cheaper bottles of wine into the American market. Trader Joes has always had the three buck chuck (née two buck chuck) which I consider barely drinkable but now they've got an Italian Pinot Grigio for $3.50 [1] which has been surprisingly good and hasn't run out of stock despite being very popular. They've also got a good $5 French rose and my friends have been praising some of their cheap reds.

Imagine how cheap it must be to produce if an imported bottle costs $3.50.

[1] https://www.giardinowines.com/

This isn’t meant to be a normative statement, but the French government subsidizes wine, cheese and other agricultural export production significantly.

True, but they also pay to destroy it when prices are too low.

Good god, they should just give it away as a marketing cost.

Would this increase prices, decrease prices, or leave prices unaffected?

Depends on how they manage distribution and market expectations to maintain a price floor. OPEC for artisanal delights. I agree care must be taken to not devalue overall product volume.

The same thing is happening in Europe.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66623636

But in this case you can't blame it on the price...

The cheapest wine _in a glass bottle_ i can find in the European equivalent of Trader Joes is 1.5€ so it checks out (3€ for a Pinot)

That qualifier speaks volumes. Cans and boxes are no longer the horrorshow they once we're for wine and other beverages.

Yes, overall wine consumption in the U.S. is down 4.4% Yes, “bulk” wine (about 90% of all production last time I checked) is loosing ground to hard seltzer, etc., reducing demand for ordinary wine grapes. But, high-end wines (10%) has gotten very crowded, discouraging new boutique wineries from starting and reducing demand for high-end wine grapes as well.

Growers are facing reduced demand across the board. The market for wine grapes will correct as some of those growers leave the market, however it takes a few years and some cash to repurpose a vineyard, so many growers will wait and see before they make any rash changes.

It’s almost as if huge wealth disparity causes decreased spending.

Consumer spending isn't down, just this class of wine sales, and like the GP suggested, it looks like it's just being displaced to other products because different beverages (and inebriants) are in fashion.

Also CA wine is wild expensive and overly sweet. Not all, I know I know, but the prestige stuff from Napa is comedic.

Most people don’t prefer bone-dry wines, but are shamed into asking for them (example: “comically sweet”), so the vintners avoid calling anything “sweet” even when it does have a bit of sweetness.

Man, i love some Porto, such a shame it's so expensive.

The most readily available sweet wine i can find here in Europe os sold in comically big 1.5l bottles, i'm a little ashamed to consume it in company.

Idk man, tell that to the market in Europe. I didn’t say sweet wine was bad, I said Napa wine is over priced and often sweet and juicy at the expense of more refined flavours - but still costs ridiculously more than nicer wines from elsewhere. But that’s America for you.

And, before you write me off as a pure US wine hater, I often stop into a shop here in London, Pacific Wines, which specialises in US stuff and buy things. As I said, not all US wines.

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