Bulk wine imports reign supreme in the US

Bulk wine imports saw the biggest volume rise of any category in the US last year, up 10.2% to almost 4.9 million hl — an all-time high.

Imports of bulk wine in the US soared for the fourth year in a row, equivalent to 34% of the overall volume purchased in 2022. Wine imported in bulk also recorded an historic high in value terms, although not as stark a jump as volume, amounting to a 5.5% rise to US$420 million.

Bulk imports were also only wine category that reduced its price, down 4.2% to 86 cents per litre, although prices were particularly high in 2021, World Bulk Wine (WBW) has reported.

The top six leading supplying countries represented 95.6% of the overall volume of bulk wine imported in 2022. Canada and Chile continue to be the primary suppliers of bulk wine in terms of volume, and over 40% of the bulk wine imported by the US comes from Canada, at an average price of less than 26 USD/hl.

Purchases from southern hemisphere regions including Australia, South Africa and Argentina also skyrocketed in 2022, WBW has said, while New Zealand has regained its leadership in terms of value.

European supplying countries played a minimal role in bulk wine imported by the US, with a stronger focused on sparkling and bottled wine sales.

In other wine categories, the US saw an increase in the volume of sparkling imports. Bottled wine imports increased slightly in value, but dropped in terms of volume. Bag-in-box wines experienced a sharp decline.

Conversely, the volume of bulk wine exported by the US tell a very different story, dropping 27% to 1.2 million hl, the lowest recorded over the past 15 years. However, the decline was smaller in terms of value.

Sparkling wine and, to a lesser extent, bottled and bag-in-box wines, also decreased in terms of volume, despite generating more turnover compared to 2021.