r/news • u/wrxninja • 6h ago
California Farmers Are Struggling to Sell Grapes as Demand for Wine Drops
https://www.kqed.org/news/12101534/california-farmers-are-struggling-to-sell-grapes-as-demand-for-wine-drops2.2k
u/jockfist5000 6h ago
My wife and I drink wine, and are members at a handful of wineries. When we started, going to a winery for a tasting cost a few bucks (maybe $10, but free for members) and that was waived if you bought a bottle or two. Since Covid wineries started charging insane amounts for a tasting, wouldn’t waive the fees with purchase, and the prices of the wines themselves have gone up pretty dramatically, especially up in Napa and Sonoma. $40 bottles are now 60+, etc.
All of this to say as much as people’s drinking habits are changing I think the industry got ahead of itself and really priced themselves out of a lot of people’s budget.
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u/worm600 6h ago
I’ve been shocked at the tasting fees. Even in less popular areas than Napa, I’m seeing $25-$35 regularly and you need to spend well over $100 to get a single fee waived. Those $10 days were less than 10 years ago.
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u/OddRobotics 6h ago
around 25-30 throughout the finger lake wine region in New York
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u/Distind 6h ago
I must be a cheap ass because I'm still seeing 10-15 at the places I hit.
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u/electric_machinery 6h ago
Upstate NY is like that. 20 years ago was 4 or $5 for a tasting and they'd waive it when you bought a bottle of wine. There are a couple of those places left (charging 5 -- 8) but there are some really fancy places selling "Experiences" where it's $25 per person and bottles are 30+
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u/sandman8727 5h ago
I'm in Northern Virginia and I agree that the "tastings" are now billed at the price point of flights, but still pour a tasting amount. Oh, and 10 years ago a free glass (actual glass, not a pour) was included in the price and usually a tour of the facility as well.
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u/theRealtechnofuzz 6h ago
whiskey distilleries sometimes give you free tastings or waive the tasting fee with any purchase.
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u/SiempreRegreso 5h ago
Wine culture is the worst.
Live in SF. In the early ‘00s, we used to bop up to Napa and Sonoma once or twice a year for free wine tastings and come home with a few bottles and brands we then sought out at the local wine shop.
Then, the foodie & wine scenes took off, and every party was suddenly just well-off people reciting the restaurants they’d recently eaten at, and the wines they had drunk since the last party. Food and wine replaced books and films as the dominant modes of cultural consumption, right before streaming took off and Netflix shows joined the new set.
At this point, the wineries started charging for tastings and just generally went up their own asses. Instead of the vibes in the tasting room being low-key and fun, they now become pretentious and annoying. I’m not hurting for assets, but I have zero interest in participating in performative commercial rituals like the wineries started to put on for the bourgeoisie who flocked there. Hoi polloi were no longer really welcome, and young people who weren’t finance quants, Bain consultants, or database engineers could no longer afford to wander up to the wineries, to learn a bit about wine and have fun with friends.
Prices of bottles from reputable wineries concurrently raced upwards.
This industry chased the exact demo that is now all on Zepbound or Retatrutide and health-stats maxxing, and they chased away the young learners and middle-class buyers who learned to just buy whatever was cheap at the grocery store rather than appreciate a bit of craft.
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u/Fit-Switch-5795 3h ago edited 16m ago
It is long-term counter productive to price out younger consumers - no one likes being embarrassed ordering wine, so if you have an affordable tasting, with a bit of intel, the punters there will go off and then (confidently) buy and recommend your wine, for years.
Dumb buggers.
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u/Holiday-Tip-3720 3h ago
yep. but i argue thats always what was wanted. there was a brief time after college where vaynerchuk was on top of the millenial game and it was nice to be part of a crowd that was 'disrupting' the scene from the stuffyness. how nice to see that they stuck to their tradition of exclusivity and snubby noses. i'll stick to a wine fest here and there and dream of a day where a light table wine isnt 30$
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u/DankVectorz 6h ago
Wine got popular and the wineries got greedy and ruined it for themselves
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u/Royal_Amount5114 6h ago
Not unlike beer.
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u/grc207 5h ago
Good luck finding a poured pint of beer for less than $9-10 dollars in Portland, Maine now (if you can even get a full pint). So many breweries high on the scent of their own hops and now you can’t afford the product.
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u/-r-a-f-f-y- 4h ago
$6-8 pints of craft brews in Portland, OR, still. $3 tall boys.
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u/alurkerhere 6h ago
Tasting fees have gone nuts and price is no indicator of quality. Remember one time I went to Napa and they gave a tasting of $200 bottle wine. Maybe the nuance was lost on me, but my friends and I thought it tasted exactly the same as every other wine.
Lots of smoke and mirrors in that industry, not to mention being expensive as f.
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u/lu5ty 6h ago
Yeah its crazy how hard they push some wines as being superior to others as if taste isnt 99% subjective
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u/BabySharkMadness 6h ago
Sounds like private equity got into the wine tasting business.
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u/jockfist5000 5h ago
I’m sure some have, but Covid fucked over a lot of the service industry. They had to adapt with a big drop in traffic and tried to solve that by charging more and turning it into a “tasting experience” where you need to make a reservation, get charged more but supposedly get a better 1 on 1 experience with the pourer, etc. also, costs have gone up for everything and they had to adapt to that too.
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u/ChaseballBat 6h ago
Aren't wineries private equity first and foremost?
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u/BluntsnBoards 6h ago
There's a big difference between generational/mom n pop private equity and someone who specializes in collecting businesses they know nothing about.
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u/shadowboxer27 6h ago
I was down on the Southern Illinois wine trail doing tastings on weekends. $5.00 tastings and you get to keep the glass. I would do hundreds of tastings on weekends.
Now? It's double the price, you pick your wines, head back to your table, and don't get to hear my jokes. It's a shame.
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u/Malaix 6h ago
Its the story of like the ENTIRE service industry really.
They got greedy and fell in line with the Epstein-billionaire scheme to just suck all the wealth out of the working class to make a small legion of billionaires with an underclass of serfs.
What all these middling millionaires miss out on is that they aren't rich enough to survive or ascend from their current point and they are firmly of the serf class when the customers they depend on no longer have spending money.
People who think they are safe because they live in one McMansion and own a bunch of property are going into the FAFO process now. If you make your money selling goods and services to relatively normal everyday people rather than being the personal lackey of a billionaire your necks are on the chopping block too.
Just look at those rich multi-millionaire nepo-baby Trump supporting farm owners crying over their acres of land and inherited wealth about not being able to afford shit now that the Epstein class has tilted the table too much for them to stand comfortably on anymore.
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u/Maxpowr9 4h ago
As an old money family friend said to me: "if you have a consistent work schedule, you're working class."
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u/NohFyoochur 6h ago
This feels like everything. Every hobby. Every activity. My tinfoil hat conspiracy is that I really think the USD is way more devalued than they're letting on.
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u/Saloncinx 3h ago
My tinfoil hat conspiracy is that I really think the USD is way more devalued than they're letting on.
It absolutely is. I work in hospital purchasing and the PO's for some items like helium and nitrous oxide and stainless steel hardware goes up every single time we order. pre agreed prices for things are just meaningless now when even 5 years ago if a invoice was more than a PO no big deal the vendor would adjust the invoice but now they're just like hey you want the item or not? Especially some of the vendors that are literally the only manufactures for some things
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u/Hippopotasaurus-Rex 6h ago
I hadn’t been wine tasting in years. I was legal drinking age in the early 2000s. I remember you could waste an entire day, and get absolutely plastered, if you wanted to, for like $25-$35 (hit multiple wineries). We went to a small, but know locally winery a few years ago. They wanted like $50 for a few tiny tastes. We don’t go back.
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u/FillMySoupDumpling 6h ago
Grew up in the area. So many wine tastings were free or a nominal fee. It makes it easier to know you’re going to enjoy a $40 bottle.
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u/Lactating-almonds 6h ago
I can’t afford groceries or gas to get to work, so I’m def not spending money on alcohol
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u/Individual_Show_9709 6h ago
just drink your calories in alcohol
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u/NorridAU 6h ago
Second in calories at 7cal/g only beat by oil at 9cal/g.
It’s nutritionally nothing though, so pair it with unpeeled potatoes for most vitamins, some sauerkraut for vitamin c, beans, multigrain rice/bread for fiber. Cider and beer can supplement. The monks do it during fasting. I wouldn’t spend my day buzzed but that alcohol is saved calories from the last bumper harvest.
Oh , I get the Eastern European and colonial USA diet more now. USA drinking habits were 8-12 standard drinks a day if I remember the mention in Supreme Court briefings correctly. Alcoholism is a bitch but alcohol helped build the world before reliable refrigeration
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u/se7en41 6h ago
Switching to full-flavored beer for those extra carbs is just common sense in this economy.
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u/AutoDefenestrator273 6h ago
A man of culture, I see.
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u/McGillicuddys 6h ago
If we're gonna bring back workhouse culture we gotta go full force right? Maybe the vineyards should shift to laudanum production
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u/MadAstrid 6h ago
Or $50 per person to taste at a winery, which once offered free tastings.
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u/bigwetdiaper 6h ago
Also people are working crazy hours with little to no time off. No time to recoup from a hangover. If we had a 32hr workweek. The amount of money that the booze/traveling industry would rake in overnight would be insanity.
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u/Veritas3333 6h ago
If I drink a beer the alcohol replaces the caffeine in my system and I fall asleep!
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u/Silver-Bread4668 6h ago
I never used to get a hangover until I turned 40. It was awful. I mostly stopped drinking after that. Maybe a beer or two with a meal once in a rare while.
I've never liked wine. Though there were more than a few nights with Carlo Rossi when I was younger. Not that fancy shit.
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u/The_Poster_Nutbag 6h ago
No joke, these people need to get over themselves, their $70m estates, and start lowering prices.
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u/WalletFullOfSausage 6h ago
I manage a medium sized liquor store, and have since the pandemic. Think roughly 300-500 customers a day.
Alcohol sales in general haven’t slumped at all. In fact, this year has seen record sales for us. What’s changed are the purchasing habits. People are going for stronger drinks in smaller quantities. No one’s getting the $20 bottle of 10% wine when they can get a 4pk of some 15% cocktails for the same price or less. Likewise, they’re skipping out on the 30pks of 4-5% beer and getting a handful of 24oz 9% beers instead.
Reports keep saying “folks aren’t drinking anymore” and that’s only semi true; what’s mostly true is that people are simply going for a cheaper buzz. That’s why brands like BuzzBall or Cutwater or BeatBox are thriving and flying off shelves nationwide, while legacy brands and less-fun offerings sit by the wayside.
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u/ThaLunatik 6h ago
people are simply going for a cheaper buzz
A tale as old as time: https://www.bumwine.com
"Call them bum wines, street wines, fortified wines, wino wines, or twist-cap wines. Whatever you call these beverages for the economical drunkard, this page explores the top five."
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u/WalletFullOfSausage 6h ago
I never understood Boone’s Farm. It’s got less alcohol than a Bud Light. Lol. Who can drink enough of that to get drunk before vomiting?
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u/tjdux 5h ago
Teenage girls
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u/EclecticDreck 4h ago
Can confirm: a single bottle of Boone's Farm was enough for me to drunkenly climb, fall out of, and then climb a tree again.
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u/Wild-Video-5317 5h ago
Sweet and cheap. It's the training-wheels of alcohol. And not everyone is trying to get hammered...
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u/Melbuf 4h ago
broke college students, it was always that or the $15 2 liters of Vladmir vodka
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u/ImpossibleQuail5695 6h ago
Finding this anecdotally at my local watering hole. Wine selections are usually garbage, because the market is going elsewhere. I remain, MostlyWine.
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u/epelle9 6h ago
Buzzball is not a cheap buzz though..
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u/Daghain 5h ago
No, but you gotta admit those cute little Buzzballs are a genius gimmick.
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u/Daghain 5h ago
I love me some Cutwater White Russians. And the Banana Mudslides. Dangerously delicious.
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u/driverdan 3h ago
Third-generation grower Bill Berryhill said it means another year of losing money and wasting hundreds of tons of healthy grapes.
The article fails to mention Bill Berryhill is from a prominent Republican political family. He and his brother were convicted of money laundering. He almost certainly voted for Trump. Get fucked Berryhill.
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u/RamblingSimian 1h ago
Nice catch, thanks for pointing that out. I wonder if he claims the Democrats cheat in elections.
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u/Plasmamonkey12 5h ago
Millennial here. My wife and I love to drive to Paso Robles a few times a year. We've been doing it for almost a decade now. Tastings used to be under $20 or free, and bottles were generally $30-60. Now when we go, tastings are like $30-70 and bottles cost $65+. In this economy it's just too much. We've also stopped drinking for the most part. Kids don't give a shit that your head hurts the next day. That piggy back ride is inevitable.
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u/TheStLouisBluths 5h ago
Being hungover and having to keep tiny humans alive sounds brutal.
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u/aarkwilde 5h ago
I like wine. But I am not going to pay for tastings, and I won't buy it without tasting it first. Wineries used to understand this.
When we do taste something we like, usually at a dinner out or with friends, we try to pick some up. But we don't have disposable income to waste.
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u/solidus_snake256 5h ago
Paso Robles has destroyed their water table, and have cut down 1000s of old growth oak trees just to make grapes. Yes it employs a lot of people, but it’s an export that destroys the town for capital gains. It’s horrible to watch because there’s no real regulation on these farms.
They get to do whatever they want because fines are simply the fee for doing business. Oak trees in the way? Cut it down and pay the fee. Well running dry? Dig farther than the surrounding residence so they can’t compete with your well depth. Deal with the lawsuit later when residence can’t afford to drill to the same depth and have no water.
The city has built 3 giant hotels that remain vacant 80% of the year, while still not finishing construction on more housing for anyone who actually lives here.
San Luis Obispo county has one of the worst cost of living to income ratios in the entire US. It’s driving out the people who have lived here for decades. I directly blame the wine industry. They can gladly go away.
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u/Underdog424 4h ago
I agree with this 100%. My father was a farmworker in the wine industry. They chewed him up and spit him out. We ended up moving to the Bay Area because my father couldn't find work. He was a cellar master in the 90s. Couldn't even find a job in the late 2000s. It's all gutted out.
He died of liver cancer from alcoholism. No retirement or benefits from the wineries he worked at. I wish the worst things on the wine industry. I would give them actual curses if it worked.
And the amount of native plants and animals that have been wiped out by vineyards is astounding. I used to be able to swim in the creeks of Sonoma County. I wouldn't touch that water now. Everything about the wine industry is toxic.
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u/water_n_trees 5h ago
Ever since I got my first car I started exploring and have driven damn near every backroad from Southern Monterey to Northern Santa Barbara counties, for getting close to 30 years now. For many years I've watched exactly what you're talking about. They keep pushing further and further out, stripping steeper and steeper hillsides. I remember several years ago Justin cleared a few hundred acres of beautiful old growth oak forest off of Willow Creek Road, during nesting season. I've embraced Buddhist thought, with an accompanying deep meditation practice, to find peace with all the pain and rage I've felt over the years as it felt like the world was closing in (my hometown is actually SLO, but I got pushed out a while ago. But that's a whole other story. Grateful I'm still able to hang on for now in north county).
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u/Fenix42 5h ago
I am near one of the newer wine areas in California, Paso Robles. One of the family friends has a buisness doing environmental stuff for the vinyards. Think things like soil and run off monioring.
He said locally, land with vines on them has the same value as undeveloped land now. That is going to cause a lot of bankruptcies.
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u/wrxninja 5h ago
Who would've ever thought the wine industry would see such a threat...I know nothing lasts forever but...
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u/Hay_Fever_at_3_AM 4h ago
A lot of these people voted and donated for the tariffs and trade wars that caused exports to fall.
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u/Reversi8 4h ago
A duck walked up to a lemonade stand and he said to the man runnin' the stand "Hey! Got any Grapes?”
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u/Jaambie 3h ago
As a Canadian we avoid the American wine section like the plague. I’ve picked one up at an isle end and went to my girlfriend to show her. I went “this looks good! Oh, it’s American” and put it back. If we have to pick between 2 products at the grocery store, we will pick the non-American one even if it costs more.
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u/exolstice 2h ago
In our household, we do this with all products. Made/Grown in America? Back on the shelf it goes.
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u/hickscraft 2h ago
Eurotrash here. We have also stopped buying American wine after the Zelensky-respect episode and Greenland talk. Get an adult in charge again and maybe you can start fixing things
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u/momochicken55 6h ago
Demand for just about everything is going to drop because WE HAVE NO MONEY.
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u/skynetempire 6h ago
This. But this is kinda big since alcohol tends to be recession proof. Hard times people drink but people arent spending on alcohol these days.
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u/Realtrain 5h ago
Here's what I don't get though. It's a K-shaped recovery right now. So wealthy people should still be purchasing wine like always, yeah?
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u/aztronut 3h ago
Guess they'll have to lower their prices then right? You know, supply and demand curves and all that, or does that stuff only work in one direction.
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u/D1RTYFRANK 3h ago
I keep waiting for bourbon prices to drop because demand for that has dropped, too. Doesn't look like it's going to happen.
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u/Kurtotall 5h ago
Alcohol consumption is in decline.
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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 5h ago
Until the Big Day everyone is waiting for, anyway.
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u/JasChew6113 4h ago
I’m sure it a combination of factors, but the Sonoma and Napa wineries being greedy doesn’t help. That region’s wines are grossly overpriced. Napa itself is a circus of bullshit and douchebags. And charging for stingy metered tastings. Up next: pay parking. Mandatory reservations. Mandatory minimum purchase.
You can get a much better value outside of that region. And especially outside California now. Wine tech has evolved tremendously.
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u/Peppermintcheese 4h ago
I feel like the industry has backed themselves into a corner with pricing. They raised it to improve their perceived value but now that demand has dropped, they can’t exactly drop prices bc cheap wine signals bad wine.
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u/ruinersclub 4h ago
Isn’t that every industry.
Like they all borrowed money because times were good and kind of driven by tech or tech mentality - unlimited growth potential.
And almost nothing has actually met ROI.
Now we have apartments at $2500, $40 wine, $16 beers.
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u/Mineturtle4042 6h ago
I suppose it makes sense, considering the fact that (as a gen z) almost none of my friends and/ or peers drink. The ratio of drinkers to non-drinkers is around 1 in 8.
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u/Trololorawr 6h ago
I’m sure younger generations propensity to consume less alcohol is a contributing factor, but the sudden demand shift for California grapes is due to Canada’s boycott of US liquor. Canada was previously the number one buyer of US wine. Most provinces have since removed US wine from our shelves.
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u/Alternative_Way_2700 6h ago
And other countries joining in. I stopped buying Californian wine in support of Canada.
I'm in the UK.
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u/Septopuss7 6h ago
Gen X here, but one of the biggest surprises I got when I sobered up a decade ago is how many people don't drink at all or barely ever drink these days! Maybe it was just the company I kept but these days I never see a bunch of hungover coworkers (restaurant industry) like I did back in the day.
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u/MonochromaticPrism 3h ago
Part of it is changes in entertainment options. For a very very long time getting drunk was one of the few easily accessible entertainment options, usually paired with the entertainment of "interacting with other humans". The existence of effective and accessible alternative entertainment options, like social media, YouTube/TikTok, video games, etc, all weaken the fundamental "purpose" behind why alcohol was a major societal entity in the first place.
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u/ravenecw2 6h ago
I think this country might in a ticking economic time bomb with the new generation not drinking. So much of the food/resort/gambling industry is built upon alcohol that there will be severe trickle down when they get hit hard. I don’t think that is necessarily a problem, just an observation. They will need to adapt
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u/zeekayz 6h ago
They can serve us good expensive teas like China does. I prioritize restaurants with A+ loose leaf tea selection.
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u/Redshirt_Welshy_Nooo 6h ago
Even in my wine-drinking hey day, I almost never bought California (or US, generally. Maybe the odd PNW Pinot noir). It was always wild to me how expensive it is compared to really enjoyable carmeneres and malbecs from South America (often available <$10) or Bordeauxs/cab francs/Beaujolais for 10-20.
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u/H4rr1s0n 6h ago
Absolutely insane how a fantastic white wine from new Zealand is cheaper than an average white wine from California.
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u/catsdrooltoo 6h ago
About the only wine I have is reisling or something else sweet. I haven't found many of them from the us that are as good as the Germans, and they're pretty similarly priced.
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u/alpharaptor1 6h ago
On one single day the demand for champagne (sparkling wine) is going to skyrocket and it can't come soon enough.
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u/sloppyslimyeggs 5h ago
My plan: I have a bottle chilling in my fridge, ready to go. That first bottle is going to go fast and I'll buy a case from Trader Joe's to celebrate. I'll make sure it's French.
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u/inosinateVR 6h ago
That’s my bad guys, I’ve been sober for a little over 2 years now
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u/BrandenWi 5h ago
You'd think people would be drinking more... Desperate attempt to drown out the dystopian reality that we find ourselves in, etc.
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u/Doctor__Proctor 5h ago
Problem is that I can't afford it. Some of the beers I regularly drink are now going for $14-16 for a 4-pack. Granted, those are 16oz cans, but still, that adds up, and with everything else going up, I'd rather buy actual food and things I need like gas to get work to pay for all of it.
Edit: I know this was about wine, but many of the same economic factors apply to all alcohol and I prefer beer or whiskey. 😁
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u/ohmarlasinger 5h ago
Weed > wine
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u/oracle_mystic 4h ago
The amount of wine I would need to drown this out…plus I can’t be hungover for my soul sucking job. So weed it is.
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u/Illustrious-Gas-9766 5h ago
Like everything else, wine is an expensive luxury. If your budget is squeezed, wine is something that is not necessary.
I'm hoping that the price of wine goes down a bit before winter. I love a glass of wine during the cold season.
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u/daerath 5h ago edited 2h ago
It's the cost. It's always the cost. Tastings used to be free and pours were decent. Then they were $5, then $10, then $20, and pours got smaller.
Bottle prices went up and kept going up.
Restaurants typically sold a per glass of wine price as the bottle price. That wasn't as big a deal when bottle prices were low. Now they sell it at more than the bottle price. Want the whole bottle? I've seen those prices at 3+ times the store price.
Buy it at the store? Sure. But, prices are still high. You can find deals if you spend the time, but once you do land on a particular varietal and winery, you tend to just buy those. The desire to try a new vineyard is reduced when it's like 25+.
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u/stonkDonkolous 5h ago
The bottles are too expensive now. Cut the prices and it will sell
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u/adlopez 5h ago
Drop the price of wine. I’ve spoken to some wine makers about this because they actually let their grapes rot vs. pressing them so as to “stabilize” the price of wine.
They’re keeping the price high. Same with hop farmers - stripping 10-15% of the vines so as to keep hop prices up.
God forbid we have cheaper alcohol.
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u/yesmrspankysir 5h ago
"We've started charging more so we can make more profits or cover our higher costs, I can't understand why people aren't buying our product when we've increased our prices 50%-100% in the last 5 years?"
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u/maynerd_kitty 3h ago
I put up a fence last fall and I got all the wooden posts from a farmer in Bakersfield. He said the old wine drinkers are dying off and the new generation is smoking weed.
He said sales were down 60% and they were tearing down the arbors to plant carrots.
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u/RadicalOrganizer 5h ago
Wine doesnt do the trick anymore. Need something heavier to cope with the psycho shit coming from the government every day
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u/Underdog424 4h ago
I was born in a vineyard. My father was a farmworker in the wine industry. He went from picking grapes to being a cellar master at a hometown winery. During the 90s. A lot of these wineries became corporate and expanded.
That wonderful local winery was bought out by some asshole rich dude, and he fired my father because he made too much money. My father bounced from corporate winery to corporate winery for years. They chewed him up and spit him out.
I hate the wine industry. They deserve everything they are getting.
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u/drolgin 3h ago
European here. I used to drink more wine in general than I do now, but over the past few years, I've gone from maybe a couple of bottles of American wine a month to a solid zero, and I find I share this with a lot of my wine-drinking friends. It's partly because the cost of quality US wines has been steadily climbing to the point where it's been difficult to find decent value for money, but for most it's political. There's just no interest in supporting US exports of any kind.
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u/lanfordr 3h ago
Then why are they still $8.99+ at the local grocery store. My kids love grapes, but not at those prices.
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u/millennial_falcon 2h ago
Because that’s a different kind of grape and a different kind of sales pipeline? Unless you’re interested in buying thick skinned wine grapes with seeds by the truckload?
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u/Technical_Ad_4894 2h ago
just start making wine jelly and put it next to the fancy cheese. Girl dinner gang will buy it.
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u/phoenix0r 6h ago
Our local mom and pop winery down the street is doing 40% less business this year than in 2023. They don’t export or anything. Just a local small business. The problem is that no one drinks anymore.
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u/ja_dubs 6h ago
The problem is two fold. People are drinking less and the liquor industry as a whole massively over estimated demand post-COVID and over produced as a result.n
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u/RubyR4wd 6h ago
I thought drinking had just decreased drastically in the younger generation, the older generations have stopped also?
I have been drinking less because of the price of everything. I don't need expensive alcohol
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u/rarestakesando 6h ago
Ozempic has also been a large contributor to the drop in alcohol consumption. All those house wives that were helping to keep the wine industry a float just don’t care to drink to anymore.
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u/ernapfz 6h ago
Just remember Trump, MAGA, and all the Republicans. We know Canada did this damage but we had no choice in their demented tariff war and ‘attacks’ on Canada. As a a Canadian, I am truly sorry for this terrible fallout on California and your people. Once again, try to impeach and jail the Orange Pedo.
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u/Joebranflakes 6h ago
Canada buys a lot of wine. I wonder why they stopped buying American wine. Oh well, it’s a mystery.
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u/Oceanbreeze871 5h ago
“Let the market decide…no, not like that!”
Vineyards have a very complex relationship with their communities and are often despised, as they use their economic influence to get increased amounts of water, tax breaks, heavy pesticide use etc. other farmers and environmental people do not like them at all.
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u/DundeeToCanada 5h ago
No. Demand for American wine drops.
Let get the facts straight.
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u/Maximum-Warning9355 5h ago
All the vineyard with Trump 2028 flags are wondering why the left would do this to them.
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u/UserSleepy 4h ago
Or "Stop Newscum from Stealing OUR Water", it's really crazy the signs you see. The Central Valley of California already lost most of us water (Look up Tule Lake) and agriculture is further depleting the water table
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u/juan_rico_3 4h ago
I wonder if people are catching on. I was always put off by the hype in wine.
https://www.vinology.com/the-big-money-wine-myth/
The more expensive the bottle, the better rating it received. That is what one would expect. However, there is a catch: the wines were exactly the same; the only difference was the quoted price of the wine. Participants ranked a $45 Cabernet Sauvignon higher than the same wine priced at $5.
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u/Maleficent-Scene-475 2h ago
Wow, almost like disrupting a century of alliances and trade could have extremely forseeable negative effects on your economy. Don't worry though I'm sure there's a reason this is actually good for the us
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u/RLewis8888 6h ago
We're all waiting for a specific event when we'll all party like it's 2999.
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u/Similar-Sir-2952 5h ago
So they lowered the price of wine like we learned about supply and demand?????!
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u/Constant-Plant-9378 4h ago
Fuck them all. Wealthy farmers sitting on millions in inherited land, driving $80K pickups while paying below-market wages to undocumented workers while voting for Trump three times are crying because they are making less for their fucking grapes.
Cry me a fucking river.
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u/ToxicAdamm 6h ago edited 6h ago
You saw it happen in the OJ business. There is a generational shift happening with older folks passing on and being replaced by a new generation of people that don't have the same habits.
There are so many new options for young people, too; seltzers, vodka lemonades, craft brews, THC drinks, etc. Their marketing is really on-point, while those wine makers are still marketing to 60+ year olds.
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u/Trollensky17 3h ago
As a Canadian, we are avoiding US products as much as possible, especially alcohols (for some reason? I forgot why alcohol was a point of contention.)
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u/thejoeface 4h ago
I wish more places would bottle juice. I’m not much of a drinker (and less now that my migraines have gotten worse) and my wife doesn’t drink at all. We used to love getting a few bottles of Navarro’s Gewurztraminer juice for holiday dinners. But honestly even those have gotten too expensive for us now. They’re $17 a bottle.
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u/Axeclash 2h ago
I am Canadian. I absolutely love me some bold California Zinfandel. I haven't bought any in years. I will continue the boycott until the biggest disgrace of an American leader is long gone, and the fascism has receded significantly.
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u/MetalFox9000 6h ago
Keeping their chums in the alcohol and cig industry alive was part reason behind the war on drugs. Now no one can afford $50+ dollar cases and $20+ wines anymore. Nice job with the delusion of growth!
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u/ClintBruno 6h ago edited 1h ago
Americans: Young people should be living at home slaving away keeping my cheeseburgers and shit cheap. Not out partying with friends!
Also Americans: WhY noBuddEE ByeEEN ALkUH0L!!!
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u/Not_impressed_often 6h ago
The drop in wine drinking might have something to do with the final price to the costumer being $20+ when everyone would still make a profit at $7.
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u/Colon_Oscopy_74 5h ago
dear farmers, HODL onto your vines and do this:
create crop starvation until the world FINALLY plunges head in sand deep into WWIII, then enjoy your wine harvest as everyone starts drinking again due to the 7 year war and food rations !
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u/MachineCloudCreative 4h ago
I have a bad reaction to sulfur dioxide and have noticed this year all grapes are now being coated with it, so I haven't had any grapes this year.
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u/BigWhiteDog 3h ago
At least in California, where multiple entire counties have become monocultured, this is going to do some serious economic damage, and while painful, I'm here for it. I grew up in Sonoma, where we had a lot of orchards with half-dozen different fruits being grown, along with dairies, hay and produce, all being as large a crop as wine if not larger, worked on the edges of the wine industry at times, and I've hated seeing every spare inch of ground being converted to grapes. 13 years ago I was working for a vineyard management company in the Napa Valley and looked at a alcohol license database for the county. Believe it or not, there were about 400 physical wineries and over 3000 individual labels (there are wineries that have multiple brands for people that can't afford their own facilities) and that was just Napa!
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u/wildegnux 1h ago
Swede here. My favorite wines tend to be Californian Pinot noir, but guess what... I haven't bought any since 2024. Also don't buy bourbon anymore.
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u/CyclingThruChicago 6h ago
Two major contributors to my significant decline in alcohol consumption.
Health. I just feel so much better not drinking. Never had a problem and mostly drank socially but as I round the corner to 40, just having 2-3 drinks on a Saturday night makes me feel meh on Sunday morning. And my 5 year old doesn't care if daddy has a headache, he wants to ride bikes at an ungodly hour on Sunday.
Living in a place with legal marijuana. I don't smoke but I will take a gummy. Kid with grandparents or aunt/uncle and will take a 5-10mg. The high feels better than any buzz, I sleep like a baby and wake up feeling completely fine.
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u/torcsandantlers 6h ago
I feel bad for them, but this is what happens when you dump tons of resources into mono-cropping; it leaves you so much less resistant to change.
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u/myislanduniverse 6h ago
Yep. "What happens if people stop drinking so much?" is just not a risk that growers are really willing to realistically consider during their SWOT and PESTL analyses because the question is existential.
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u/SugarGorilla 6h ago
"Tariffs have reduced exports, particularly to Canada, which was the largest foreign buyer of American wine."
Oopsie