Wine is Good Business

Wine is Good Business. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The current economic recession has been taking its toll across the nation on a number of fronts but so far the wine industry seems to be dodging the bullet. At last weeks Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers annual meeting in Kennewick, the topic was broached a number of times and like Executive Director Vicky Scharlau points out, people still are buying wine.

SCHARLAU: Wine sales continue to be strong. Consumers might be trading down as we’re hearing it but they’re not avoiding their purchases of high quality wine.

Robin Pollard, Executive Director of the Washington Wine Commission fielded the same question in an open session.

POLLARD: Wine is holding steady in terms of sales and consumption. The ways in which consumers are buying wine might be shifting. Less eating out but instead picking up a bottle of wine for dinner and taking it home. But in terms of consumer goods that are being purchased, wine continues to remain strong.

Scharlau says that consumers may see an incremental price increase in the future as input costs rise.

SCHARLAU: I expect that in a few years that price will be passed on to the consumer and I think the consumer understands that and I think that they are willing to pay that smidge more for a quality product.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.