Shaken News Daily
Faced with fierce competition from other categories, the U.S. wine market nonetheless eked out a 0.3% increase last year, to total 327.3 million 9-liter cases, according to the recently released 2018 edition of The U.S. Wine Market: Shanken’s Impact Databank Review & Forecast. This year, total wine volumes are expected to rise by less than 1 million cases, but that increase will mark the industry’s 25th consecutive annual gain.
While the U.S. market’s total wine volumes are at an all-time high, growth has been somewhat sluggish over the past six years, with depletions gains of under 1% annually. And after steadily increasing from 1994 to 2011, per-capita consumption is projected to decline in 2018 for the seventh straight year. From a broader perspective, however, volumes have more than doubled over the past four decades.
Still wine brands priced above $10 a 750-ml. bottle have performed well recently, with a solid advance of 5.7% last year to 75.7 million cases. Wines priced below $10, on the other hand, combined for a 1.7% decline. Kendall-Jackson remained the largest-selling premium-priced wine by retail value last year, while Veuve Clicquot was the leading import in dollar terms. Barefoot Cellars is by far the market’s number-one brand overall by retail value, while Franzia remains the biggest wine in volume terms.
Imported rosé wines, primarily from France, have also been helping drive growth. Rosés from Provence, in particular, have been surging, rising 46.6% last year to 1.87 million cases. Rosé brands from the Languedoc and Rhone regions also posted impressive increases. Overall, imported rosés are projected to approach 3 million cases by 2020—marking a five-fold expansion of the category since 2010.