How Long Will This Last?

Now it feels like it's 2025. The new year's cobwebs are clearing, and the events are starting, including the release of the Annual SVB State of the Industry Report, the DTC Wine Symposium, and next week, the Unified Wine Symposium will be in full force.

The main goal of presenting the SVB State of the Industry Report is to provide a forward view and be as transparent as possible. I understand that many in this industry don't like to hear 'doom and gloom.' Who does? But that is exactly the comment I received several times over in the 2019 report when I said:

With a good 2018 in the books, it would be easy for winery owners to just keep doing what they do now, hoping the multitude of challenges creating the current retail sluggishness will be solved. This would include consumers finding more discretionary income, labor and migration issues becoming disentangled, and the emergence of digital platforms and strategies to unravel the many problems and opportunities in the DTC sales channel.

Hope is always good, but hope is never a good strategy. Despite the positive year in 2018 and 25 years of great growth for the US wine business, I believe sales growth forecasts for the next five years should be tempered. The fundamental underpinnings that created the industry growth are changing, which means the tactics that were relied upon to ride this wave of success to this point will slowly prove flawed without business adaptation. To continue its growth in the years ahead, the US wine industry needs new direction and a changed focus.

The 2019 report was also the first in which I spent a chapter discussing the neo-prohibitionist threat. In any case, the industry finally understands what I was warning about on both counts. So, will this report be hard to hear?

I don't need to spend much time rehashing what the industry knows. Of course, the data are a foundation that must be offered, but in this report, I don't spend much time discussing neo-prohibitionism or dwelling on the obvious: We are in a correction. In this report, like the other SVB reports, I look forward to what comes next and will answer the question, "How long will this last?"

Knowing how long this phase will last is a core consideration for industry plans for the next five years. This is a report I believe you will appreciate, and it may be helpful in your specific circumstances.

Please sign up above to watch the presentation with a great panel; get the replay link and the link to your own copy of the report!

2025 is here. Let's get after it!