COVID Impact on Oregon Wine Pt 2

COVID Impact on Oregon Wine Pt 2

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
With today’s Fruit Grower Report, I’m Bob Larson. The economic impact of the pandemic, wildfires, and other 2020 challenges were just one of the topics raised at last month’s Oregon Wine Symposium.

Dr. Robert Elyer, of Economic Forensics and Analytics, says the vineyards saw a drop in production, but there are other factors to consider …

EYLER … “Harvests were down. We’re looking to see, ultimately, how that effects the supply chain not only in Oregon, but more generally in the United States. And, we’re still very early. We know that some wineries got federal help and it’s hard to quantify that just yet because we don’t know how much that just simply filled the gap. We ultimately need economic recovery to really wake up those parts of the supply chain which are waiting to open back up again.”

And that, Eyler says will likely be the key …

EYLER … “But, if you add it all together, 2021 is likely to be kind of a reclamation year if we can get the economy open back up and it’s not going to be necessarily a complete recovery year. That’s, we’re thinking, more ’22 or ’23.”

Christian Miller, owner of Full Glass Research, says it’s a comfort level …

MILLER … “Now, of course, vaccination, etc could change perceptions here. In fact, these percentages actually rose a bit in January over what they’ve been in November and December. But, you can see a pretty strong reluctance for people to recover even if things start opening up in the legal sense.”

Miller says core wine consumers and online sales will help keep things afloat as we move back to “normal.”

Tune in tomorrow for more.

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