Monte Belmonte Wines: What will Trump’s tariffs mean for wine prices? Local experts voice predictions, as tariffs continue to be a moving target

By Monte Belmonte
For the Valley Advocate

“Godspeed, everyone. May your supplier discounts be generous, and may wine on the water be saved by the powers that be.” It was a striking quote on a Facebook Group that I follow called the US Wine Trade Alliance. I initially encountered this group at the beginning of the first Trump administration during their first dalliance with threats of tariffs as economic vengeance. I used the group as a resource when I wrote for this paper about the potential impact of tariffs on our local purveyors. Well, it’s time to whine about the wine tariffs once again.

PEXELS/Mark Thomas

The initial rumored threats of tariffs to be applied to alcohol from the EU were as high as 200%. At writing, those threats seem unlikely to come to fruition. The number the Trump administration landed on after his Rose Garden speech on Liberation Day was around 20% on most of the more popular foreign alcoholic beverage producing nations. I am writing this as close to my Advocate-imposed deadline as possible, but these tariffs have been, and likely will continue to be, a moving target. I have reached out to some of the same folks I talked to about tariffs during that first month of the first Trump administration to gauge how these new tariffs will affect their work and our world.

I was tasting with my friends at State Street Fruit Store Deli Wines & Spirits in Northampton on the day that the 200% tariffs were proposed. One of the employees there (who is also my friend and a newlywed), Alisa Inderieden, aka The Yankee Sippah, told me that she had never had so many requests in one day for Calvados, which is a French, mostly apple-based, brandy. Alcohol consumers were concerned enough to start stockpiling booze from the EU. The beverage buyer at State Street (who is also my friend and an oldlywed) Wesley DeSantis, aka The Wine Son, says “I expect, between the campaign rhetoric and the promises (threats?) since Inauguration Day, alcohol importers, suppliers, and wholesalers have been steadily beefing up their inventories on their imported goods.” Well that’s good news. Perhaps that means we are unlikely to see impacts from the recently imposed tariffs. “Unfortunately, no,” Wes says. “What it does mean is that the impact will be mitigated and drawn out over time. I don’t expect to be raising prices on tequilas, Canadian whiskies, or European wines and spirits in April. Probably not even in May. But the reckoning will come.”

Sharon Swihart from Hadley’s Four Seasons Wine and Liquors writes regular email subscriber updates on all things wine in the store. She wrote in a recent missive, “If we were unscrupulous, we would be screaming at you ‘hurry in and stock up!!!’ Nope.” She too thinks it will be a long time before we see any significant price increases from the tariffs. “Most of the reasons are unique to our store,” she noted. “The rest involve policies being developed by importers, and the wholesale companies we work with.” She says Four Seasons has a deep inventory of European wines that they can rely on and that they aren’t going to price-gouge on what they already have in stock. “I’m told that for the most part there is zero need for panic restocking,” she wrote. “Months of inventory remain at the wholesale level, meaning that many more months of Four Seasons tariff-free inventory will be available.” Swihart says that larger wholesalers are unlikely to raise prices, at least in the short term, and these initial tariffs will be absorbed. But she noted that “smaller wholesalers don’t have the latitude to absorb higher costs in this way, [and] there is discussion by some of increasing all prices by 10%, inventory-wide, as opposed to inordinate wine-by-wine price hikes.” She says that makes a lot of sense for smaller companies, but what about the really small companies who represent the really small family wineries here in the U.S.?

For my 2020 tariff column, I talked with my childhood friend John Coco. A direct quote about Coco from that column: “He is a sommelier and the former beverage buyer at The Kennedy Center (where Trump fears to tread).” Welp. Turns out Trump’s in charge of that place now. But the tariff song remains the same. Coco is the Maryland State Manager for the Roanoke Valley Wine Co. and their portfolio deals almost exclusively with small boutique producers from around the world. Coco spelled out for me the effect the tariffs will have on the small farm-family wineries in the U.S. He told me if the really small companies are getting a large percentage of their portfolio tariffed, and can’t absorb those costs like the big companies can, they may be forced to shutter their business. Some of these small companies are the only ones distributing wines from the small family farms here in the U.S. While Trump claims the tariffs are a boon for U.S. farmers, it could force small operators out of existence. Given the impact of the DOGE cuts on small farms here in the Valley, it may be part of Trump’s overall strategy. Both the cuts and the tariffs mostly favor the big guys. The small farm-related U.S. businesses, like wineries, will suffer from the virtual taxes these tariffs impose. All of these tariffs will eventually trickle down to us, the wine consumer.

“In an already uncertain world of wine consumption, the prospect of increased prices due to tariffs is an unsettling thought,” Rob Swan, a sales representative for Ruby Wines, says. The reasoning behind creating these tariffs is, ostensibly, to get Americans to buy more American made products. We make lots of wine and other alcoholic beverages in the United States. Shouldn’t we just stop whining and drink pinot noir from Oregon or sparkling wine from Napa or Tempranillo from Virginia? “You can’t just replace wines produced internationally with a domestic equivalent,” Swan says. “If great Burgundy, Champagne, or Rioja was made here then sure, but for those of us who have made a life of representing the world of wine, it’s certainly a brave new world.” Or maybe 1984. Or Farenheit 451. Or The Handmaid’s Tale.

While the tumult of tariffs may currently be in the apocalyptic rather than the post-apocalyptic phase, when will the beginning of the end begin? “The first wave that will likely be impacted will be this year’s rosé wines,” says State Street’s Wes Desantis. “Costs will be passed down through these layers, from importer to supplier to wholesaler to retailer, and ultimately to the consumer. Coming off one of the worst quarters I’ve seen in 25 years in the alcohol industry, no one needs this.” Wes’ expertise is in the world of alcoholic beverages but he says, “I suspect every segment of the retail world has a similar story to share.”

Sharon Swihart from Four Seasons seems to agree. “There is no question that a few wines will be more expensive, almost immediately, regardless of the retailer. Some of our foreign whites and rosés will cost more when the new vintages arrive. These, however, account for a tiny fraction of our inventory: less than 5%. So, if a retail store tells you that they’ve had to raise all of their prices … well, you know what to do.”

Back to the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance page. It’s filled with comments like “There’s no winery in Europe that can make discounts enough to fight against those crazy tariffs.” And “literally praying to the wine gods.” There is still hope that there will be a “zero for zero” tariff resolution between the U.S. and the E.U. But as I mentioned, I’m submitting this column as close to the Advocate deadline as possible…

Oh look, now it’s 11 hours past my deadline and after sending the world into economic chaos, there’s a 90-day pause. Despite the respite, the tariff trauma remains. Maybe, by my next column, we’ll have a clearer picture of who is getting a tariff and who is not. But somehow, I doubt it.