New Zealand wine sales in US increase, for 16th year in a row

Morningreport | 21 April 2023

Sales of New Zealand wine have increased in the US – “a bright spot in an otherwise declining import sector”, the New Zealand Winegrowers industry body says.

The increase, for 2024, marks the sixteenth year in a row that retail sales of New Zealand wines within the US have gone up, the new report from alcohol sales analysts Impact Databank. And it comes on the heels of threats from US president Donald Trump to impose a 200 percent tariff on alcohol imported from European Union countries, amid unfolding international trade tensions.

New Zealand Winegrowers director Fabian Yukich told Morning Report it was promising news, amidst otherwise challenging conditions.

“That publication goes out to a lot of people who make decisions about buying New Zealand wine, so it’s pretty important … that we’re getting all this good news from the US right now, where things are otherwise a bit gloomy in other parts of the industry … people see it and they say, well we better order some more New Zealand wine,” Yukich said.

New Zealand is particularly known for the “flavours and aromas” of our sauvignon blank, he said.

“If you look at it from a global perspective, we are less than 2 percent of the world’s production – the trend at the moment is moving away from red wines and towards white wines, and it’s moving towards those more aromatic fresh white wines, so the trend is all in New Zealand’s favour.”

“So the wine’s that we make they are also very sustainably made, and we do take a lot of time to promote that around the world, and that is also in our favour because people do like to buy wines that are sustainably produced.”

Yukich said despite retail sales in the US increasing, retailers were being slow to restock New Zealand wine on their shelves, “and we are feeling that a little bit in New Zealand.”

“They’re unstocking – so that means less sales in the short term … less imports from New Zealand at the moment … but the outlook in the long term is good. Just about every other country’s sales at retail level are reducing, and wine in general is reducing – against that backdrop New Zealand wine is increasing … the long term picture is good.”

Picking has just begun for this season’s sauvignon blanc, but in the face of declining consumption in New Zealand and international, some growers in Marlborough have recently been advised to leave some of their crop unpicked.

“In the last three years we’ve had three massive crops, that Mother Nature has delivered – and this year’s no different to 2022 and 2023, where the vines are delivering a lot of grapes,” Yukich said.

“And the wine companies are saying ‘well look, we need to temper that against what is actually being exported out of the country’.

“It’s not great news for our growers… but the long term outlook is good.”

France has too much wine, so it’s paying millions to get rid of it

French has too much wine, so it is getting rid of it
French has too much wine, so it is getting rid of it

France is about to destroy enough wine to fill more than 100 Olympic-size swimming pools. And it’s going to cost the nation about US$216 million (NZ$365m).

Ruining so much wine may sound ludicrous, but there’s a straightforward economic reason this is happening: Making wine is getting more expensive due in part to recent world events, and people are drinking less of it. That’s left some producers with a surplus that they can’t price low enough to make a profit. Now, some of France’s most famous wine-producing regions, like Bordeaux, are struggling.

In June, the European Union initially gave France about US$172m to destroy nearly 80 million gallons of wine, and the French government announced additional funds this week. Producers will use the funds to distil their wine into pure alcohol to be used for other products, like cleaning supplies or perfume.

Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau told reporters that the money was “aimed at stopping prices collapsing and so that winemakers can find sources of revenue again”, according to Agence France-Presse.

The decline in wine consumption is not new, according to Olivier Gergaud, a professor of economics at France’s Kedge Business School who researches food and wine.

Wine consumption in France has been plummeting since its peak in 1926, when the average French citizen drank about 136 litres per year. Today, that number is closer to 40 litres, The Washington Post previously reported. Consumers are also inundated with beverage choices now, and they’re choosing wine less and less.

“We have an underlying issue of, ‘How do we better engage with the consumer and make wine more relevant, make wine a relevant choice for consumers that have a lot of options?'” said Stephen Rannekleiv, the global sector strategist for beverages at Rabobank, a Dutch financial firm specialising in agribusiness.

As consumption has taken a nosedive, production costs have increased and inflation has tightened budgets around the world. That’s especially true since the Covid-19 pandemic, which shuttered bars, restaurants and wineries, driving up prices. The war in Ukraine also influenced the industry by disrupting shipments of products essential to winemaking, like fertiliser and bottles. And on top of the pandemic and war, climate change is forcing growers to adapt to new harvest schedules and reckon with more extreme weather.

Costs are so high and demand is so low that some producers can’t turn a profit.

While this year’s subsidy is getting a lot of attention, the French government intervention is not a new phenomenon, according to Elizabeth Carter, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire who has studied the French wine market.

“I am not vaguely at all surprised that France is looking to destroy surplus and prop up prices by limiting quantity, because this is something that they’ve actually been struggling with since the 19th century, wine overproduction,” Carter said.

She said there’s been an internal push-and-pull in France for decades as producers grapple with what quantity of grapes to grow and how much wine is too much. The nation has long regulated the wine market intensely, in some cases telling producers how many vines they can grow and how far apart they have to be, in an effort to prevent the market from being flooded.

So while this buyback program isn’t totally new, Gergaud said, he hopes the industry takes this moment to consider longer-term solutions.

“We need to think in terms of, you know, long-run adaptation to these changing conditions,” he said. “We need to help this market to transition to a better future, maybe with more wines that would respect the environment. Adaptation to climate change is a real challenge.”

And regardless of its current woes, wine is too strong a part of France’s identity for the market to go anywhere. It’s certainly in the government’s best interest to keep the industry happy: French President Emmanuel Macron has even said that a meal without wine “is a bit sad”.