The Saxco family hopes you had a fantastic holiday filled with laughter, excellent food, and wine that continues through the end of the year. May Santa Claus bring you everything on your list and more.

The whole industry is tentatively hopeful for solid holiday sales, yet there is a shadow of concern due to the potential imposition of tariffs in 2025. This looming threat could affect imported wines and essential materials such as bottles and boxes and possibly prompt retaliatory tariffs. For wine packaging, the threat of 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, as well as the potential 10% China tariff increase, could result in substantial increases in goods costs and demand for US glass manufacturing. We are already seeing an increase in the tightening of demand for domestic glass, increasing its lead time. We recommend you speak with your partners and know where they source your packaging goods in anticipation for any future changes in duties.

While most things are stable, gas prices have decreased ever so slightly from October's $3.585/gallon to November's $3.522, and ocean freight from Asia to the West Coast has also dropped; there has been a slight increase from Asia to the East Coast in ocean freight costs. Ardagh has filed an appeal on the unanimous CVD decision. 

Bottled Tidbits - In the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Germany sits the oldest wine bottle ever discovered - the famous Speyer Wine bottle. A team of archaeologists unearthed this sealed bottle buried in a 4th-century AD Roman tomb in 1867 near the ancient city of Speyer. This sealed glass bottle contains what was once considered the world's oldest known liquid wine, dating back to around AD 325. Sadly, in 2021, the title was usurped by a 1st-century AD bottle of wine found in Carmona, Spain, which became the new "oldest surviving wine in the world”.

The Speyer bottle, affectionately referred to as Römerwein, or "Roman wine," is a stunning piece of ancient craftsmanship. This 1.5-liter vessel, characterized by its yellow-green glass and whimsical dolphin-shaped handles, showcases ancient Rome's advanced glassmaking and wine preservation techniques. The bottle's contents, intended as a provision for the afterlife, offer a tantalizing glimpse into historical practices surrounding death and the afterlife. Some of us at Saxco have requested a bottle of wine to travel with into the afterlife.

The Speyer wine bottle serves as a delightful detour into history, showing how we can see into the past using the universal language of wine. Amazingly, an age-old vessel can be a tool to remind us of civilized cultures' relationship with our magic beverage over the millennia and how it continues to captivate and inspire humanity across time and space.

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