U.S. Beats Imports in Table Wine Growth

(Wines&Vines) - Growth in off-premise sales of domestic table outpaced the growth of imports, and other key wine industry metrics remained positive through June.

Strong domestic wine sales numbers are one of the highlights of WinesVinesDATA’s regular industry metrics report released today. Hiring activity in the wine industry also stayed strong, and direct-to-consumer sales rose in June, which typically is a slow month for the sales channel.

One arena seeing some contraction is the flash segment. Flash retailers are offering less wine, and web traffic appears to have declined or stayed flat for all of the major flash websites.

More comprehensive sales data

According to the latest data from IRI, domestic wines grew by 7% in value during the past 52 weeks and totaled $6.7 billion, while imports rose by 2% and totaled $1.7 billion. Domestic wines accounted for 80% of sales in the off-premise locations where IRI analyzes scan data.

WinesVinesDATA is now drawing from a wider base of data from IRI, the Chicago, Ill.-based market research firm, covering about 45% of all U.S. off-premise sales for table wine and sparkling wine. The data incorporates IRI’s more inclusive multi-outlet and convenience store tracking, which includes food and drug stores, dollar stores, warehouse clubs, Target and Walmart. Wines & Vines continues to focus its analysis on sales of domestic wine.