Amid intensifying trade wars between the United States and world allies, Virginia spirit sellers wonder whether European wine might be spilled in the crossfire.
Wine sellers around the Roanoke and New River valleys said they are hoping President Donald Trump’s talk of a 200% tariff on wine, champagne and spirits from the European Union blows over.
Trump’s threat of alcohol tariffs came on social media Thursday, in response to a planned EU tariff on American whiskey. The EU’s whiskey tariff was made in retaliation against steel and aluminum tariffs soon expected to be imposed by the U.S., and that’s how trade wars escalate.
At Vintage Cellar on South Main Street in Blacksburg, owner Keith Roberts said he’s been in business since 1983. He said as much as half of his sales are imported wines, and the mounting talk of tariffs is “unsettling for the whole world, not just the wine industry.”
“You just have to change what you can, and live with what you can’t,” Roberts said. “Hopefully reason will prevail, and that’s hard to say. I’m not that happy with the White House right now.”
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Vintage Cellar Wine Store owner Keith Roberts holds a bottle of French wine Thursday. Roberts said he believes consumers will go with the flow even if significant tariffs are placed on wine from Europe.
Matt Gentry, The Roanoke Times
At Vintage Cellar, French, Italian and Spanish wines sell about as often as bottles from the West Coast, he estimated. Most customers come in with a price range of $10 to $20 for a bottle, he said.
“People can still stay in their same range,” Roberts said. “They’re not going to start paying twice as much.”
There just might be fewer European bottles in those more affordable price ranges. Roberts said he’s been through a lot in his more than 40 years as a small business owner.
“Being in business so long, I used to think, ‘oh my gosh, the world as we know it is coming to an end, and it’s so terrible,’” Roberts said. “And then I realized, when it comes right down to it, people are still doing their same old thing.”
Between the past two years of price fluctuations, infrequent product and employee availability, he said things have been pretty bad lately. But Roberts said he is also fortunate.
“People aren’t going to give up drinking,” Roberts said. “A lot of people don’t consider it a luxury, just like eating.”
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Keith Roberts walks through the front door of his business, Vintage Cellar, in Blacksburg on Thursday.
Matt Gentry, The Roanoke Times
Another wine business owner in the region said they would provide written responses if granted anonymity, because “it’s too risky to talk politics in any way as a biz owner in today’s climate,” the person said.
“I don’t claim any knowledge in international trade, but I find it unlikely that the proposed tariffs on EU wines will actually happen,” the business owner wrote.
Reports say the EU exported some $5 billion worth of wine to the US last year, while EU whiskey imports were worth about $700 million.
“With such a significant imbalance, the EU has much more to lose if they follow through with their whiskey tariff,” the business owner wrote.
That person said the wine and whiskey tariffs could simply be strategies to stir public sentiment during trade negotiations.
“However, I can’t help but feel that tariff threats like this… cause unnecessary turmoil within the industry and among consumers when broadcast publicly on social media,” the person said.
In his social media post, Trump said the tariffs “will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”
It is unclear how the import taxes would be absorbed among vintners, distillers, brewers, distributors, retailers and consumers, according to reporting by the Associated Press. A previously untariffed $15 bottle of Italian Prosecco could possibly increase in price to $45, the AP said.
Luke Weir (540) 566-8917