Latest news with #WineAmerica
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
America's struggling wine industry is getting crushed by global tariffs and Canada's retaliation to them
Canada's break from American-made wine and the Trump administration's global tariffs have compounded the struggles of the United States' already-stressed wine industry to the point that it may be difficult for much of it 'to come back from,' an American wine organization leader told NBC News. 'Canada is the single most important export market for U.S. wines with retail sales in excess of $1.1 billion annually,' Robert Koch, the California Wine Institute's president and CEO, said in a statement. Last month Canada united to boycott American wines — taking all U.S.-made vino and alcohol off its liquor and wine store shelves and out of restaurants across the country — as an aggressive retaliatory response to Trump's tariffs on its political ally north of the border. The boycott started in Ontario, and every other province responded in kind. When Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced his territory would ban American wine and alcohol, he mocked Trump's signing an executive order in a social media video. 'This order, it's a wonderful order, it's a beautiful order,' Kinew said sarcastically. 'This order is pulling American booze off the liquor market shelves.' His staff, lined up behind him, applauded as he held up the order for all to see. It has become a point of national pride not to buy American. 'Their people are now motivated' because of the tariffs, Kaiser said. The results have the potential to be catastrophic for the wine world in the United States. 'We understand the reasoning behind some of these tariffs,' said Mike Kaiser, the executive vice president and director of government affairs for Wine America, a group that advocates for wine industry policies in Washington, D.C. His industry has been 'caught in the crossfire' of a trade war, and even if the tariffs were reversed tomorrow, he said, 'I think the psychological damage with the consumer might be really hard to come back from, even if these disputes are ironed out.' He added that some exporting winemakers 'may be able to absorb this tariff.' But losing $1 billion a year to 'unsold wine that was already in Canada, it really disrupts the domestic wine market here from top to bottom.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the tariffs' effects on the wine industry. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario, which controls the sale and distribution of alcohol in Canada's second-largest province, also did not respond. Before Trump issued tariffs on other countries, America's wine business had already been facing headwinds. 'We are struggling,' said Christi Coors Ficeli, CEO of Goosecross Cellars in the Napa Valley of California. After the Covid-19 pandemic, wine consumption went down in the United States, sales dipped and visits to wineries became inconsistent. Alcohol-based drinks like White Claw and High Noon have become popular alternatives to wine, Ficeli said. In addition, in January, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy suggested wine could be harmful, even in small quantities, which Ficeli believes turned away drinkers. Last, the cost of wine — to buy it and to visit wineries — increased because of inflation and, in some cases, wineries' trying to make up for the slowdown. 'It has gotten fairly expensive for tourists to come here,' Ficeli said. Wanda Newman Johnson, a frequent Napa Valley visitor, said the tariffs have put her in a 'wait-and-see mode' about whether she will continue to have wine shipped to her home in Atlanta. 'I feel really bad, because many of these wineries are small businesses, which are the heart of the country,' said Newman Johnson, who has memberships at Brown Estate and Turnbull Wine Cellars in Napa. 'They're getting impacted and hurt, and I don't know how some of them are going to be able to survive the tariffs.' Ficeli also said Napa has become less affordable to visit in recent years. 'A lot of us had to raise prices, because after Covid, pricing was insane, for especially getting glass,' she said. Most wineries import bottles from China, she said, because U.S.-made bottles are substandard. The price of shipping them out of China also increased by 'double or triple' the amount pre-Covid. 'So most of us made price increases just to cover our cost increases,' she said. But with Trump's 145% tariffs on China having initiated a 125% tariff on products made in China coming into the United States, getting bottles from Asia has become cost-prohibitive. Throw in the 10% tariffs on European imports — under which American wineries buy French oak barrels to cultivate wine and bottle corks from Spain — and a financial quagmire has emerged. 'Some of the barrel suppliers are telling us that they'll eat the tariffs and they'll just give us similar pricing to last year, with a slight increase,' Ficeli said. 'And some are telling us that it could be a 15, 20% increase in barrel prices, which for a small winery like us is a lot to handle, especially when you're spending $1,200 a barrel.' Ficeli said she is concerned about the prospect of having to pass along the increases to her customers, whom 'we don't want to rip off.' But the tariffs will affect the cost of bottles, barrels and even corks. 'It's going to be a struggle,' she said. And the struggle is not just in California, the largest wine-growing area in the country. In New York's idyllic Finger Lake region, for example, where there are more than 100 wineries near Canada, the impact of the tariffs is punishing. Scott Osborn, owner of Fox Run Vineyards in Penn Yan, on Seneca Lake, said Canada accounts for 10% of his sales. But his winery experienced a 20% drop in Canadian business in March. 'The tariffs will have a huge negative impact on wine in New York,' Osborn said. 'The Canadians come here and drink the wine at our café and buy bottles to have with dinner. They don't take wine across back to Canada, but when they're here, they enjoy it until it's time to go back. Not having that business is a big deal.' The tariffs have angered Europeans who 'are canceling their trips here,' Osborn said. 'It's going to have a huge impact this summer when they don't come here. And we're concerned. The damage is already done. It's going to be at least a year, if not longer, for my industry to recover.' Osborn said a friend in Antwerp, Belgium, who owns a wine bar that specializes in American wine is in a dire position because of the Trump-generated trade war. 'The Europeans will not buy American wine,' he said. 'She has a pallet of Finger Lakes wines that she cannot sell. That's going to ruin her business.' Kaiser said that Wine America is not in favor of tariffs and that it has pleaded its case to Congress. 'But the way things stand right now, Congress doesn't really have much ability to curb the administration from doing these things,' he said. 'We would like — if there are going to be tariffs — for them to be targeted at certain things,' Kaiser said. 'We'd like the administration to work with other countries to make sure we're not targeted, not caught in the middle. That's the biggest thing. Leave us out of it, if you will.' Kaiser said he and his organization are seeking face-to-face meetings with the U.S. Trade Representative's Office 'and others in the administration just to let them know how this really does impact us. It's really bad right now, but we hope cooler heads will prevail, although the damage done will be hard to overcome.' This article was originally published on
NBC News
17-04-2025
- Business
- NBC News
America's struggling wine industry is getting crushed by global tariffs and Canada's retaliation to them
Canada's break from American-made wine and the Trump administration's global tariffs have compounded the struggles of the United States' already-stressed wine industry to the point that it may be difficult for much of it 'to come back from,' an American wine organization leader told NBC News. 'Canada is the single most important export market for U.S. wines with retail sales in excess of $1.1 billion annually,' Robert Koch, the California Wine Institute's president and CEO, said in a statement. Last month Canada united to boycott American wines — taking all U.S.-made vino and alcohol off its liquor and wine store shelves and out of restaurants across the country — as an aggressive retaliatory response to Trump's tariffs on its political ally north of the border. The boycott started in Ontario, and every other province responded in kind. When Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced his territory would ban American wine and alcohol, he mocked Trump's signing an executive order in a social media video. 'This order, it's a wonderful order, it's a beautiful order,' Kinew said sarcastically. 'This order is pulling American booze off the liquor market shelves.' His staff, lined up behind him, applauded as he held up the order for all to see. It has become a point of national pride not to buy American. 'Their people are now motivated' because of the tariffs, Kaiser said. The results have the potential to be catastrophic for the wine world in the United States. 'We understand the reasoning behind some of these tariffs,' said Mike Kaiser, the executive vice president and director of government affairs for Wine America, a group that advocates for wine industry policies in Washington, D.C. His industry has been 'caught in the crossfire' of a trade war, and even if the tariffs were reversed tomorrow, he said, 'I think the psychological damage with the consumer might be really hard to come back from, even if these disputes are ironed out.' He added that some exporting winemakers 'may be able to absorb this tariff.' But losing $1 billion a year to 'unsold wine that was already in Canada, it really disrupts the domestic wine market here from top to bottom.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the tariffs' effects on the wine industry. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario, which controls the sale and distribution of alcohol in Canada's second-largest province, also did not respond. Before Trump issued tariffs on other countries, America's wine business had already been facing headwinds. 'We are struggling,' said Christi Coors Ficeli, CEO of Goosecross Cellars in the Napa Valley of California. After the Covid-19 pandemic, wine consumption went down in the United States, sales dipped and visits to wineries became inconsistent. Alcohol-based drinks like White Claw and High Noon have become popular alternatives to wine, Ficeli said. In addition, in January, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy suggested wine could be harmful, even in small quantities, which Ficeli believes turned away drinkers. Last, the cost of wine — to buy it and to visit wineries — increased because of inflation and, in some cases, wineries' trying to make up for the slowdown. 'It has gotten fairly expensive for tourists to come here,' Ficeli said. Wanda Newman Johnson, a frequent Napa Valley visitor, said the tariffs have put her in a 'wait-and-see mode' about whether she will continue to have wine shipped to her home in Atlanta. 'I feel really bad, because many of these wineries are small businesses, which are the heart of the country,' said Newman Johnson, who has memberships at Brown Estate and Turnbull Wine Cellars in Napa. 'They're getting impacted and hurt, and I don't know how some of them are going to be able to survive the tariffs.' Ficeli also said Napa has become less affordable to visit in recent years. 'A lot of us had to raise prices, because after Covid, pricing was insane, for especially getting glass,' she said. Most wineries import bottles from China, she said, because U.S.-made bottles are substandard. The price of shipping them out of China also increased by 'double or triple' the amount pre-Covid. 'So most of us made price increases just to cover our cost increases,' she said. But with Trump's 145% tariffs on China having initiated a 125% tariff on products made in China coming into the United States, getting bottles from Asia has become cost-prohibitive. Throw in the 10% tariffs on European imports — under which American wineries buy French oak barrels to cultivate wine and bottle corks from Spain — and a financial quagmire has emerged. 'Some of the barrel suppliers are telling us that they'll eat the tariffs and they'll just give us similar pricing to last year, with a slight increase,' Ficeli said. 'And some are telling us that it could be a 15, 20% increase in barrel prices, which for a small winery like us is a lot to handle, especially when you're spending $1,200 a barrel.' Ficeli said she is concerned about the prospect of having to pass along the increases to her customers, whom 'we don't want to rip off.' But the tariffs will affect the cost of bottles, barrels and even corks. 'It's going to be a struggle,' she said. And the struggle is not just in California, the largest wine-growing area in the country. In New York's idyllic Finger Lake region, for example, where there are more than 100 wineries near Canada, the impact of the tariffs is punishing. Scott Osborn, owner of Fox Run Vineyards in Penn Yan, on Seneca Lake, said Canada accounts for 10% of his sales. But his winery experienced a 20% drop in Canadian business in March. 'The tariffs will have a huge negative impact on wine in New York,' Osborn said. 'The Canadians come here and drink the wine at our café and buy bottles to have with dinner. They don't take wine across back to Canada, but when they're here, they enjoy it until it's time to go back. Not having that business is a big deal.' The tariffs have angered Europeans who 'are canceling their trips here,' Osborn said. 'It's going to have a huge impact this summer when they don't come here. And we're concerned. The damage is already done. It's going to be at least a year, if not longer, for my industry to recover.' Osborn said a friend in Antwerp, Belgium, who owns a wine bar that specializes in American wine is in a dire position because of the Trump-generated trade war. 'The Europeans will not buy American wine,' he said. 'She has a pallet of Finger Lakes wines that she cannot sell. That's going to ruin her business.' Kaiser said that Wine America is not in favor of tariffs and that it has pleaded its case to Congress. 'But the way things stand right now, Congress doesn't really have much ability to curb the administration from doing these things,' he said. 'We would like — if there are going to be tariffs — for them to be targeted at certain things,' Kaiser said. 'We'd like the administration to work with other countries to make sure we're not targeted, not caught in the middle. That's the biggest thing. Leave us out of it, if you will.' Kaiser said he and his organization are seeking face-to-face meetings with the U.S. Trade Representative's Office 'and others in the administration just to let them know how this really does impact us. It's really bad right now, but we hope cooler heads will prevail, although the damage done will be hard to overcome.'
USA Today
14-02-2025
- Health
- USA Today
Are two drinks a day too much? Inside the debate on what to tell America about alcohol.
A spirited debate is playing out in Washington, D.C., over what the government should tell Americans about spirits. Federal dietary guidelines are getting an update this year, including guidance on how much alcohol Americans can safely drink. The current guidelines suggest a daily limit of two drinks for men, one for women. The alcohol industry wants that language preserved. But alcohol safety groups, joined by many researchers, say the guidance is bad advice. Both sides are attacking the science behind a pair of reports prepared to help federal regulators craft new guidelines. February 14 is the last day for public comment. 'I personally subscribe to the view that the guidelines are outdated and too high, and the evidence doesn't support them,' said Tim Stockwell, a scientist at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. Stockwell points to Canada's new alcohol guidelines, which suggest a healthy limit of two drinks a week. Other voices suggest a more moderate fix: Change America's guidelines to recommend no more than one drink a day for anyone, regardless of gender. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. Alcohol industry leaders would rather let the old guidance stand. 'I don't think the science is there for changing the number from two to one,' said Laura Catena, a winemaker, physician and author. Catena says the current guidelines, read as a whole, are 'fantastic.' Are 'two drinks a day' too many? The full Dietary Guidelines for Americans on alcohol, which few Americans read, offer abundant cautions. Drinking more alcohol raises your risk of dying from drink, the guidelines say. Even if you follow the one drink/two drinks limit, they state, you face a potentially higher risk of cancer and other diseases. 'The government's not recommending that you drink two drinks a day,' said Michael Kaiser, executive vice president of WineAmerica, an industry trade group. 'If you look at the guidelines themselves, they also say, if you don't drink, don't start.' Americans are getting mixed signals on the dangers of drinking. Not long ago, scientists widely believed moderate drinking conferred health benefits. That view has soured in recent years, and many researchers have drifted toward the view that no amount of alcohol is safe. 'We're all relearning what we know about alcohol,' said Mike Marshall, CEO of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance, an alcohol safety group. Marshall cites a statistic from one of two reports prepared to shape the federal guidelines, written by the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking. According to that report, if you down two drinks a day, following the current guidelines for men, there's a 1 in 25 lifetime chance you will die an alcohol-related death. 'That's crazy, right?' Marshall said. 'I think that really brings home why we have to change the guidelines.' Health risks rise from one to two drinks a day The study, published last month, assesses the risk of dying from alcohol at one and two drinks a day. At one drink a day, the risk is infinitesimal: A roughly one in 1,000 chance of alcohol-related death. At two drinks a day, the lifetime risk rises to about one in 25. The largest single peril is not disease, the study says, but 'unintentional injuries,' such as falling down stairs while intoxicated. There's a smaller risk of alcohol-related cancer and cirrhosis – and a small benefit, in reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. The heart benefit diminishes, and other disease risks rise, with heavier drinking. 'Below a drink a day, the risks seem to be small, if any,' said William Kerr, senior scientist at the nonprofit Alcohol Research Group. 'Above that, things start to go up steeply.' Kerr favors changing the federal guidelines to advise no more than one drink a day for anyone. The second report, released in December by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, caused a stir in the research and temperance communities. The report emphasized the benefits of moderate drinking, while seeming to downplay the risks. Among its conclusions: 'compared with never consuming alcohol, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower all-cause mortality.' Both reports will influence the dietary guidance on alcohol. Advocates of temperance have attacked the more positive report, while the alcohol industry assailed the more critical one. Biden, Trump may have different alcohol messages Complicating matters, in January, the Biden Administration weighed in with a surgeon general's advisory that tagged alcohol as 'a leading preventable cause of cancer,' contributing to roughly 20,000 deaths a year. (Smoking, by comparison, was once estimated to cause more than 160,000 cancer deaths a year.) But a lot has changed in the month since that surgeon general's report. The nation has (or will soon have) a new president, health secretary and surgeon general. And what advice they might offer the public on the hazards of drinking is anyone's guess. Donald Trump reportedly does not drink. Neither does Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of health and human services. Kennedy 'does not drink alcohol because of the huge consequences it's had for him and his family, so he's conscious of this,' said Marshall of the Alcohol Policy Alliance. 'He works for a president who doesn't drink, either, and who has often said that alcohol is not good for you.' Those facts would suggest 'that the climate is somewhat favorable to government doing the right thing,' he said. On the other hand, the Trump administration seems intent on less government regulation, rather than more. Following that impulse, the administration might elect to remove alcohol from the dietary guidelines altogether, said Catena, the winemaker. 'It remains to be seen what the new administration does with any of this stuff,' said Kaiser, of WineAmerica. The new guidelines are scheduled for release by the end of 2025, said Andrew G. Nixon, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. Only then will we know if the alcohol industry, the research community or alcohol safety groups will have anything to toast.
