Domestic table wine sales at major food and drug stores through Sept. 5 topped last year's performance by 6%, marking another healthy month of growth during a year of continual year-on-year gains. Source: Symphony IRI Group.
Three different measures of the wine industry economy were positive in September, as these three graphs indicate. Retail sales of wine, direct shipments to consumers and winery job postings all surpassed their results from the same period in 2009. This is the first publication of this Wine Industry Data Center page, which will become a regular monthly feature in
Wines & Vines.
Direct shipments to consumers from U.S. wineries in 2010 have tracked closely to the 2009 results this year but pushed up in September. The DtC Shipment Model began tracking transactions in April 2009. Source: Wines & Vines/ShipCompliant Shipment Model.
Cabernet Sauvignon led all direct-to-consumer shipment sales from U.S. wineries by varietal as measured in dollars for the 12 months ending Sept. 30. In second place, Pinot Noir had slightly more than half the sales total of Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay was the only exception to the rule that consumers like to buy reds from their favorite wineries for direct shipping to their homes. Zinfandel and Syrah showed well considering their relatively low production overall. Merlot was sixth in sales despite its No. 2 spot among reds in retail store sales. The DtC data comes from a collaboration between ShipCompliant, the compliance software provider for wineries, retailers and importers, and
Wines & Vines. It analyzes millions of anonymized transaction records from ShipCompliant through the lens of WinesVines DATA winery database.
Source: Wines & Vines/ShipCompliant Shipment Model.
The Winejobs.com Index of winery job postings shows a dramatic increase in activity through September. January 2007 set the base index of 1. The index is viewed as a measure of industrywide economic health. Source: Winejobs.com.
