There is one week remaining to participate in the Annual State of the Industry. This annual effort is an industry partnership. SVB provides all the work for free, but we have to have good participation to have useful results.
Currently we are running about 30% behind last year's participation metrics, with all regions short of expectations. Here is a link to the questions and here is a link to the survey.
Here are some early high-level indications of results in a variety of areas:
- Financially wineries describe the 2022 year as "good year." (Not bad and not great)
- They describe their financial position as strong.
- Better than average grape quality
- Lower than average harvest yields
- The impact of the economy is described as having the largest negative impact
- The Winery Confidence Index produced through the survey is running negative overall.
- Wineries expect to show a small bottle price increase when 2022 is wrapped up.
- Tourism is generally welcome in 'wine country' despite small vocal opposition that gets over-weight attention in the press
- Wineries are improving in the use and analysis of their own consumer data
- Tasting rooms have rebounded strongly since reopening
- There is moderate interest in acquiring new vineyards
- Four percent could not get insurance, while close to 50% saw rate increases, with a third of total respondents saying their rates increased and their coverage decreased
- Sixteen percent say the drought has reduced yields and they need to find new supply,
- Eighteen percent say they have the potential for a serious supply shortage without rain in the winter of 2022/23
- The supply chain problems have impacted most wineries, particularly for glass but across the board
- Regarding climate change, most say that "it's producing a moderate negative impact on operations causing notable fluctuations in business results but is survivable."
I'm looking forward to producing industry breakouts with better participation. At this stage that's not possible.
