Just one year after the COVID-19 pandemic locked down millions of individuals and forced many restaurants and bars to close, consumers started going out again and consuming more wine. U.S. wine consumption per resident increased from 2.93 gallons per resident in 2019, to 3.07 gallons in 2020 and increasing again in 2021 to 3.18 gallons, according to the Wine Institute.
But U.S. winegrowers were not the only beneficiaries of that trend, according to USDA’s Economic Research Service. Wine imports increased from 127 million gallons in fiscal year 2000 to 456 million gallons in FY 2021. These products reached approximately $7.5 billion in value in 2021. France and Italy were the top two countries that supplied the United States with wine in 2021. Each country supplied approximately $2.5 billion of wine, but that mix has been changing.
“In 2020, imports from the EU temporarily decreased in response to a 25-percent U.S. tariff placed in late 2019 on French, German, Spanish, and English wine that was lifted in early 2021,” the report said. “Until 2017, Australia was the third-largest supplier, providing as much as 21 percent of U.S. imports of wine, although that decreased to just 4 percent in 2021 following a prolonged drought and ongoing shifts in global markets.”
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Wine imports are expected to increase to $7.7 billion in 2022.
U.S. wine exports also grew by 10.6% in value last year, resulting in $1.44 billion in total revenue according to data announced by Wine Institute. California wine represents 95% of all exported wine.
“While we continue to see some challenges in the international marketplace for U.S. wine exports, we’re encouraged that export data shows a trend toward countering the impact of the global pandemic, retaliatory tariffs, unfavorable exchange rates and other external circumstances,” said Honore Comfort, vice president of international marketing, Wine Institute.
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