Wine prices 2023

Even the experts may finally have figured out that no one knows what’s going on

"Wine prices? How am I supposed to know about wine prices?"

This is the first of two parts looking at wine prices and wine trends in 2021. Part I: Wine prices 2023. Part II: Wine trends 2023.

We’re anticipating that the drinks industry in 2023 will be operating in an unstable environment, making it challenging to accurately forecast.”
-- Breakthu Beverage’s Kevin Roberts

The Wine Curmudgeon has been trying to parse wine prices for 15 years, and the one consistent during that time has been that the experts always know what’s going to happen. They may not agree, but they’re absolutely, positively sure what prices are going to do. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the world – recession, pandemic, inflation, premiumization, supply chain woes. They know.

Until now.

The quote above, from a top executive at one of the biggest distributors in the world, is an acknowledgment that we’re in a place we’ve never been before. Frankly, that took some guts, since the rest of the people quoted in the linked story are absolutely, positively sure about what’s going to happen.

Hence, my take on 2023, after a couple of weeks of interviews, Internet sleuthing, and report reading: Prices will go up, unless they don’t. And they might even go down.

Yes, a bit of WC sarcasm. But we have lots of wine in the supply chain as well as lots of grapes that have not yet been turned into wine. Plus, demand remains weak (if not declining) and consumers – according to one report – are already trading down in the face of higher prices.

On the other hand, we have increased costs for glass and other raw materials that aren’t grapes, lingering supply chain snafus, and producers who are raising prices to maintain margins.

In other words, a wine pricing conundrum that's fizzing and sputtering, getting closer and closer to an explosion. As one really smart analyst told me, “The law of supply and demand works, even for wine. It just may take longer to work itself out.”

So, in 2023, wine prices remain high. Wine sits on store shelves. Back vintages pile up. And, at some point, either later this year or early next, the fizzing and sputtering turns into an explosion and prices finally start to obey the law of supply and demand.

Unless they don’t.

Photo: "Lecture on energy security at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS)" by US Embassy Canada is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.