Independent small breweries saw more closures than openings in 2024, but craft beer is not alone. For the first time in a generation, the number of wineries in the U.S. declined in 2024 as well. There were 11,450 wineries at the end of 2024, 1.5% less than the previous year.
The West Coast, where more than half of the country’s wineries reside saw a drop of 4.3% in the number of winery businesses.
U.S. wine shipments by volume last year fell 4.2% from 2023 and were down 11.3% from five years earlier, according to an article in the LA Times.
Because of the declining sales, grape growers, like hop growers have felt the pinch. California wine grape farmers had planned to harvest about 3.2 million tons of grapes last year, but the actual amount of grapes bought and crushed for wine was 2.8 million, the lowest in 20 years, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
Like craft beer, the wine industry has seen a solid and steady growth pattern for many years. From the early 1990s up to the late 2010s, the U.S. wine industry was growing on average 3.5% a year, triple the rate of all alcoholic drinks.
The recent numbers signal a new era of closures for small wineries. “It’s going to be a slow decline,” Dale Stratton, managing director at Napa consulting firm Azur Associates told the San Francisco Chronicle. “The 20-year run that we had as a wine category was phenomenal. As all of that consumption growth was happening, infrastructure was growing along with it to support it. As we see consumption moderate, we’re going to see some of that infrastructure…” vineyards, production facilities, tasting rooms… “go away too.”
Another parallel to beer is that large beverage companies now appear to be ready to shed small wine brands, or wine altogether as they chase the evolving consumer trends. Wine Business just reported that Constellation Brands is in negotiations to sell its entire wine portfolio.
The reason for declining wine sales seem to mirror that for beer, evolving consumer tastes, people of all ages drinking less, rising costs due to inflation and more competition.
At least some in the industry are optimistic. “I would say that we seem to have leveled out in negative territory,” Stratton told the Chronicle. “As long as conditions stay where they are, we’ll continue to see activity in the M&A market and, more than likely, some people just shuttering facilities.”