Are you going to stop buying European tariff affected winei

[Neal.Mollen]

Nope. It’ll be a PITA, but, at the end of the day, I enjoy the wines too much and I’m not going to start buying a lot more domestic or Aussie wines because Sancerre got more expensive

Hard to imagine a sancerre at 14.5% plus. I think you’ll be ok

Other way around Neal. The tariffs are on wines 14% or lower.

Ooops. My error; I knew that!

[Joe_B]

Nope. It’ll be a PITA, but, at the end of the day, I enjoy the wines too much and I’m not going to start buying a lot more domestic or Aussie wines because Sancerre got more expensive

Hard to imagine a sancerre at 14.5% plus. I think you’ll be ok

Other way around Neal. The tariffs are on wines 14% or lower.

After the tariffs are gone and the producers realize Americans will pay more, don’t expect prices to return to normal.

[lleichtman]

p.s. US Customs does routinely request backup information/data to substantiate a product’s HTS code. If they were to ask for the data about a wine labeled 14.1% that was actually 13.5%, the tariffs would still apply regardless of labeling allowances.

Do you really think they are likely to go this deeply into the weeds, especially since it would be hard to find intent to defraud in a case where labeling laws allow approximate labeling? 14.1% would always be a suspicious declaration, but 14.5% is quite common and allowable for a 13.5% wine.

Oh, yes, they will.

[Joe_G_a_l_e_w_s_k_i]

I usually make my purchase decisions based on how much I want the wine versus what the cost is, so I’ll continue to do that.
If prices go up, it would therefore tend to affect some purchase decisions, but I don’t have any other particular reaction to the idea of there being higher tariffs per se.
I’m guessing the pricing won’t go up clearly and sharply the way it looks on paper. There is a lot of flexibility in wine pricing, and it’s not an essential like gasoline or electricity where people will fall in line with whatever the price is.

As usual, Chris has a very even and sensible answer.

I am cost conscious. There is no bottle I must have regardless of the cost. And this method has allowed me to amass a fairly nice collection that would allow me to ride out a 10+ year hiatus of wine purchases. I will continue to peruse the wine offered and buy when appropriate. I have no doubt that the tariffs will have some effect on my buying, but I can not hazard a guess as the actual effect. From a “not born yesterday” perspective, I suspect that I will still find a plethora of wines that I will be tempted to buy.

Or just drink champagne?

[Dan_Kravitz]

To say this is complicated is a huge understatement. I have a horse in this race and my ox has definitely been gored… in fact it may well be bleeding to death. And while I know more about this than most, I don’t know everything and there are (in the immortal words of Donald Rumsfeld) unknown unknowns… things nobody knows.

The tariffs could last two days or two decades, or anything in between or longer. This is definitely an unknown unknown.

I have delayed shipment containers that would have docked after the tariff. My freight forwarder is now (at my expense, of course) unloading them and reloading them so that I can bring in shipments of only wines that are tariff exempt. I will probably cancel some orders for wines that are not tariff-exempt unless there is a quick resolution. Nobody (politicos, customs brokers, freight forwarders, Congressional staffers, lawyers in international practice) has told me to expect that.

to Kelly Walker: The wine market (not talking about board geeks, but about the tens of millions of consumers who care about what they drink but are not obsessive) is completely swamped, as production worldwide has increased and craft beer and spirits are often eating wine’s lunch. I would be very surprised if anybody raises prices on affected wines.

to Randy Bowman, you wrote “I doubt many will notice”. I really hope you’re right, but when my $13 retail Bordeaux Sauvignon Blanc goes to $16 or 17, I think consumers will notice and I will be drowned in the stuff.

to Mark Golodetz: I believe the penalty is annual, I am far from sure that it will be satisfied in a few months, and if it is, it may kick in again right away. My business cannot play the ‘long game’ and absorb these costs in hopes that they will go away in a few months or years.

to Eric Sch: Alcohol and labeling requirements can be as subtle as theology. I am not going into details, both because I don’t have the time and because despite intensive study do not know them all, but a number of French wines that have been legally labeled 14.0% will soon be legally relabeled as 14.1 - 14.5%. It’s not a matter of sticking a new label on the bottle. First lab tests need to be certified, then French government approval is needed and only then possibly relabeling. None of this happens fast. And please note that you can run an alcohol test on the same bottle of the same wine several times over 24 hours, maybe once when the lab is 65 degrees F, once when the lab is 75 degrees F, or even at the same temp, and get very slightly different results.

to Don Cornutt: Obviously I hope you are right that this will be resolved quickly, but there is zero indication that it will be. You probably have heard the phrase “pawns in the game”?

to David Bueker: I think it unlikely that customs will seize on small discrepancies and be punitive, especially, as noted above, that under EU regulations it can be completely legal under many circumstances to label the same wine 14.0% or 14.1%. Of course, if it’s blatant fraud (Sauvignon de Touraine at 14.5%), they may well investigate. But red Cotes du Rhone? I think and hope not.

to Joe B: Americans won’t pay more. I’m not saying that American board members are not American, just that they represent a sub-microscopic percentage of the market, and I don’t believe that those who represent most of the market will pay more. They will change their purchasing habits, quite possibly for the long term or permanently.

Dan Kravitz

[David_Bu3ker]

Dan,

FYI, Customs has been increasingly picky since the advent of all the new tariffs. I see a likely scenario that they are going to be picky about wine.

We shall see.

[PaulMills]

Most of my foreign wine buying right now is Italian so I am not overly concerned. The French wines I buy now are mainly white burg, Spanish, and Pegau. I will adjust my buying but maintain my Pegau vert.

[Dan_Kravitz]

David,

Thanks for the tip. Any wines I import that are over 14% alcohol will be accompanied by test results from a laboratory certified by the French government. If Customs breaks bad, these test results should be duplicable by American labs… hopefully not at my expense!

Dan Kravitz

[David_Bu3ker]

Normally they just ask for the original test data. You should be fine.

[David_K2]

Like many, there are certainly prices where any given wine may no longer be worth it, or where I shift to different cuvees, producers, vintages, etc., depending how much I want the wine. But at a high-level, no, because there is no substitute for European wine.

[YLee]

I will take this moment to backfill and buy champagnes.

[Markus_S]

Sensibly, yes. Would anyone here buy a car if it was suddenly 25% more expensive?

[Robert_Dentice]

Since most of the producers I buy from are small family domains, NO.

[Russ_Williams]

When the prices go up, I’ll probably stop. But in a way that’s a good thing because I really don’t need any more wine.

Same here thank goodness and the only region I am planning to continue buying from is Champagne which is not subject to the tariff.

[Mike_J_ewesson]

Will definitely affect my purchases. Was planning on buying several cases of 2018 futures, but am now holding off unless I have confirmation that they will be labelled 14.1% plus. Will continue to purchase BDX at auction.

[Jay_Miller]

And sad that we’re such geeks about it that we’ll pony up just because we’re compulsive about wine.

You say that like it’s a bad thing

[Mike_Reff]

Well said Dan.

I think consumers are definitely going to notice this especially since their Savingnon Blanch from Sancerre will be raised; some consumers might not care while others will look elsewhere.

[Nathan_V]

p.s. US Customs does routinely request backup information/data to substantiate a product’s HTS code. If they were to ask for the data about a wine labeled 14.1% that was actually 13.5%, the tariffs would still apply regardless of labeling allowances.

Do you really think they are likely to go this deeply into the weeds, especially since it would be hard to find intent to defraud in a case where labeling laws allow approximate labeling? 14.1% would always be a suspicious declaration, but 14.5% is quite common and allowable for a 13.5% wine.

According to a good friend who is an importer, wines are commonly checked for alc levels. He would never condone doing anything fishy, too much risk.

[PeterH]

I’m not stuck on any particular wine to the extent I’ll overlook price increases. It happens that the only Sauvignon Blanc wines I buy are from the Loire region, but there are dozens of other white wines I can buy from regions not affected by the tariffs.
These tariffs are significant enough that they will certainly hurt a lot of export dependent wineries, not to mention the middlemen both in Europe and here in the US.

[Gary_Schulte]

My concern is if some winery businesses change their approach on red wines to make them higher in alcohol. Don’t think it will happen then take a quick read of this note in Vitisphere … Are red wines with an ABV of 14% the key to “business as usual”? . Hope that sensible business heads will see this as a temporary situation and not change their winemaking. It appears from this article that there are other forces at play in raising alcohol.