Yes, the Sales Reports Are Scary, but Here's Why I Believe the Wine Biz Will Bounce Back

It’s a complicated time for wine, but people have been making and drinking the stuff for over 8,000 years so I’m not ready to bring down the curtain on it. I have faith that it’ll bounce back.

Even so, the annual Silicon Valley Bank Wine Report came out a couple of weeks ago, and it was daunting reading if you’re in the wine biz in any way. (Note: the optimistic stuff comes after this part.) The report, always worth checking out, notes a number of dark trends. Total wine volumes were down 2.4% in 2024 and they’re likely to continue to decline this year. There are a bunch of reasons — wholesale inventory oversupply, an irritatingly robust, global, anti-alcohol movement, Millennials and Gen Z people (particularly) preferring other beverages or substances (hello, cannabis) or just abstaining in toto. Now there is also the threat of tariffs — bad for importers of European wines, but in the case of a possible trade tit-for-tat with Canada, bad for U.S. wineries as well.

Dorothy: “Toto, I have this feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore!”

Toto: “No, kid, we’re not. We’re in wine sales hell. Arf”

Well, that’s a joyous start to the vinous year. But I found a refreshing counterbalance to that recently at the annual Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, CA, when I interviewed winemaker Alecia Moore of Two Wolves Wine onstage for an industry audience. Wine is Moore’s bonus career, of course. She garnered a fair amount of attention in her first (and ongoing) career as a singer. In that realm you know her as P!nk.

Moore is a serious vigneron who fell in love with wine when she was 21, eventually took viticulture and winemaking courses at U.C. Davis, and now works hands-on in her vineyards and winery together with co-winemaker Alison Thomson and a team of five women who she referred to as "badasses who work their butts off.”

"I think that mother nature is a beautiful beast, and it’s wild to work with and around her."

Alecia Moore

Wine isn't just a hobby for P!nk

We like to think of celebrities mono-dimensionally; they don’t really exist for most people outside of their assigned role. That’s one reason why people on social media feel so outraged when a pop star or a celebrity chef expresses a political opinion. “Stay in your lane” is easy to fling at a famous person, though the random bank manager or gas station attendant who types those words might be quite surprised if someone suggested that they ought to confine every single social comment they made to bank managing or pumping gas.

Related: The Experts Behind Celebrity Drinks Brands Are Finally Getting a Spotlight

And, realistically, a lot of celebrity products — wine, tequila, golf clubs, cosmetics, whatever — are just marketing plays, a name licensed in order to sell a product. Moore was quite aware of that when she started her winery. “If I could have put out my wine anonymously, I would have. Because I didn’t want anyone to think this was some bullshit endeavor," she said.

"I do have the dirt under my fingernails."

Alecia Moore

"At first, it was like, I really have to prove the dirt underneath my fingernails, but I do have the dirt under my fingernails. But then I was like, how do I separate P!nk from Two Wolves? I’m not ashamed that I’m a successful singer — I’ve worked really hard at that. But my singing career has literally nothing to do with this.”

Where things got even more interesting to me  in the context of the (possibly) shrinking audience for wine, was when she told the audience, "I’ve been really careful about the intersection of P!nk and wine," she told the audience. "Even if it’s just on Instagram, showing them thoughtful pruning and teaching them about other aspects of this work, I thought, I’m going to take them along. Walk with me and talk with me while I go on this beautiful journey. Because it’s really fun to see someone be empowered by someone’s story about a bottle of wine."

Wine is so much more than just alcohol

That gets into what I’ve always felt: Wine has a secret weapon, which is that it isn’t just booze. It’s an agricultural product with millennia of cultural history behind it. It's fermented grape juice in a glass, sure, but as Moore said, it always goes back to food and experience and connection. "Wine isn’t just alcohol. It’s not Everclear, or those BuzzBallz that kids are downing. It’s a living, breathing product with a story that was guided by the hands of someone who was very passionate, and who wasn’t getting a whole lot out of it other than the completion of that task.” Wines tell a story.

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, but it’s always seemed to me that stories are what we live by, through, and in. That’s perhaps something that Martine Saunier felt as well; I’d like to think so.

"It’s alchemy — it’s working with dirt and then it’s gold. It’s magic."

Alecia Moore

Saunier, who died this week at the age of 91, was an iconic figure in wine. She was a groundbreaking importer who first brought the wines of Henri Jayer, Château Rayas, and Domaine Leroy to the U.S., among many, many other great producers. Moreover, she did so as a woman in the overwhelmingly male wine business in the 1960s and 1970s, blazing a trail for any number of talented women who followed in her path. I met her only twice. She was direct, brilliant, charismatic, and truly passionate about wine. She told great stories as well. I am sure she and Alecia Moore would have gotten along great.

"Wine has done enough damage to itself by inhaling a lot of pretension."

Ray Isle

Wine is magic from dirt

Both of them, like anyone else who loves wine, recognized its magic. To my mind, if we want more people to drink wine, communicating that distinctive allure it has is key. Not in any effete way; wine has done enough damage to itself by inhaling a lot of pretension. But maybe by getting back to its roots. Anyway, something else Moore said in our talk resonated with me, and I hope it will with you, too.

“I think that mother nature is a beautiful beast, and it’s wild to work with and around her. You never know what you’re going to get, and you see the rewards from the work and the love and the thoughtfulness that you put into it," she said.

"It’s a relationship, a relationship between you and your dirt and the plants; and the grapes you’re growing and the wine you’re making are actually teaching you that entire time. And then the wine itself becomes this living, breathing thing that you get to pass around, and it provides connection, and a reason to celebrate. It’s alchemy — it’s working with dirt and then it’s gold. It’s magic.”

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