KINGSPORT — For Talina Zsido, 2025 was lining up to be a year of new beginnings.
As the owner of Inspire Wine Bar in Kingsport, she recently introduced 34 new wines to their menu, including more international and imported wines. With the talk of tariffs, though, she said she is keeping an eye on the situation before making any future decisions about her business.
“I’m trying to wait it out and not worry about it until something happens,” Zsido said. “Our margins are pretty narrow.”
When it comes to cost, Zsido said that locals tend to gravitate to the more affordable, regional wines — but it doesn’t mean that patrons aren’t buying the international brands.
She said overall sales at the wine bar have increased, including Inspire being a top seller of Biltmore wines in 2024.
In explaining her process for procuring wine for her business, Zsido said she can buy either by the case or the bottle, but will work with a distributor who in turn works with an importer. She said tariffs could make an impact, starting at the top with the importer and making its way down to the local level.
“The concern comes with buying it by the bottle,” Zsido said. “If you look on the bottle, you will see it usually says where the wine is from but also the company that imported it from the United States.”
If tariffs do come down the pipeline, Zsido said she can adjust the wine menu accordingly — but as a local business, it would be hard to absorb the costs tariffs would bring.
She said that with the wine preservation system the wine bar recently acquired, she hoped to lower prices on certain wines, but it will depend on what happens in the coming months.
Realistically, Zsido said if certain wines are not being bought she would consider taking them off the menu to avoid extraordinary costs.
This file photo shows several different flavors of moonshine offered at King City Distillery, located in Kingsport.
ALLISON WINTERS awinters@sixriversmedia.com
According to the Tennessee Wine and Grape Board, a typical Tennessee winery produces 8,000 gallons of wine and has an annual gross revenue of over $1 million, with 85% of that money going toward local and state government revenue.
In a 2023 report to the governor, the board estimated at least $2.5 million was garnered from the 77 wineries present in the state at the time, with those funds going back to the state and local government revenue.
Even outside of wine production and sales, Tennessee is also known for spirits and beverages in the industry. A study by Tourism Economics commissioned by the Tennessee Whiskey Trail states that non-local overnight and day trip distillery visitors spend over $2 billion in Tennessee during 2022. This resulted in a $3.45 billion total impact for the state, along with 30,000 total jobs generated at the time.
Brown-Forman CEO Lawson Whiting discussed the potential tariff impact on Jack Daniel’s as part of its portfolio of brands during Wednesday’s third quarter earnings call. The original Jack Daniel Distillery is located in Lynchburg, Tennessee, attracting around 300,000 visitors annually, according to the company’s website.
“The conversation around tariffs is one, it’s bigger than Brown-Forman and it’s bigger than our industry and every day seems to unfold a different twist on the story,” Whiting said on the call. “There’s not much that we can really say. I can tell our competitors and everyone that we’re working with is shooting to try to get reciprocal zero-for-zero tariffs. That is our key ask — maybe that’s obvious — to try to keep this industry out of these trade wars.”
J. Robert Hall, CEO of Ole Smoky Distillery, said at a town hall held Thursday in Nashville that tariffs have already led to lost sales to neighboring countries like Canada.
“Our sales to Canada evaporated on Tuesday, and that’s a very significant impact to a company when just these sales evaporate,” Hall said. “It’s not like we’re having our products exported to Canada to get taxed by 25%, that would be bad, but they’re now being taken off the shelves.”
Hall said that with many spirits being “distinctive products” tied to specific geographical locations for production, some products cannot be replicated in other places.
“The purpose of tariffs is usually to bring jobs back to the country that is imposing those tariffs on imported products, because it’s making imported products more expensive. That presumes you can make the product in this country,” he said.
“Tennessee moonshine can only be made in Tennessee,” Hall later added.
King City Distillery and Hook & Ladder Distillery in downtown Kingsport are also local industry producers that could potentially be affected by tariffs.
What’s next?
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced several adjustments to tariffs that were set to be imposed on imports from Canada and Mexico.
In a statement shared on social media, Trump stated that Mexico will “not be required” to pay tariffs on any products that fall under the United State-Mexico-Canada Agreement through April 2 after speaking with Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum.
He then signed executive orders relieving both Mexico and Canada for goods covered by the agreement, including those related to the automotive industry.
Ben Aneff, president of the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance, told Six Rivers Media that any imposed tariffs or potential retaliatory tariffs from other countries would affect more than just distilleries and wineries.
“Even domestic producers would hurt themselves from tariffs on wine,” Aneff said. “And by the way, it’s not just the importers and distributors. They also need those healthy restaurants. Go tell a restaurant to just switch their wine list. It takes a long time to build customers that know what they want, and try to tell a customer that, ‘Well, we’re going to change what you want. We’re going to make our easy sell for you hard.’”
According to Aneff, the uncertainty and back and forth on enforcing tariffs can also push away new business.
“With uncertainty like this, people are just not going to open up new businesses,” he said. “They’re not going to hire new staff. It chokes off the revenue.”
Now, only time will tell what impacts tariffs could have on the nation, and even the Tri-Cities.