The 2023 SVB Annual State of the Industry Report will be released January 18th

 Register here for the videocast, replay, presentation deck, and copy of this year's report.

Within the 2022 SVB State of the Wine Industry Survey run last October, we asked how 2022 went and got the following response. (See headline slide) 

Forty-percent of respondents said that the year was one of their better years or their best year ever. Fully sixty-five percent said it was a good year, and those results are very close to those from 2019 when we asked the same question. 

Good News and Bad News

The results from the above survey reflect the view of the smaller premium wineries, and while they had a good year as you can see from the chart, the same can't be said for the industry as a whole.

2022 will be the second year in a row the wine industry will report negative sales growth by volume by my reckoning. I've been scouring the press this month, looking for an estimate of positive volume growth but haven't found one yet. The estimates I've seen range from negative 3.5% volume decline, to negative 0.6%. This is the first time there is an industry analyst consensus that the wine business has entered a period of negative volume growth. The last time the industry reported a volume decline was 1994, so it is a big deal.

Does that mean the industry is collapsing? Hardly. The wine business has been a part of rituals, family celebrations, religion, and used in social occasions for at least 8,000 years. So it's not going away. In fact the premium side of the wine business is still doing just fine with sales growth on a dollar basis up about 9% through nine months ending September 2022. 

But we can't ignore the clear warning signs. The writing on the wall is quite legible and there are major challenges to act upon if we want to recover growth in the industry.

I'm particularly proud of the work done on the Annual State of the Industry Report this year. It's a report that started the middle of September 2022 and was completed on December 5th before editing and formatting. The report is one-hundred pages of charts and perspectives.

Within the new report, we discuss a full range of challenges and have an updated view on how the wine industry has progressed in attracting younger consumers to the category. The news regarding younger consumer adoption of wine is a surprise to me and it's part of what will be discussed in the live videocast that will take place Wednesday, January 18th.

Silicon Valley Bank and I invite you to join us on Wednesday, January 18th for the live videocast release of the findings from the new 2023 State of the US Wine Industry Report. Registration for the telecast comes with a replay link for later viewing, download links to the studio presentation deck, and the full report.