This blog was last updated on December 21, 2020
The wine market is in greater flux than ever as producers, retailers and consumers navigate the impacts of a global pandemic. Keeping a pulse on marketplace data has never been so important given these shifting dynamics.
Nielsen is collaborating with Wines Vines Analytics and Sovos ShipCompliant to provide a much more comprehensive view of the U.S. off-premise wine category than ever previously available, with a new data product that enables both separate and combined views of retail off-premise sales and direct-to-consumer (DtC) shipments.
Here are some highlights from the most recent data, along with commentary from Nielsen consultant Danny Brager.
- In November, retail off-premise sales hit $20B and 209M cases and DtC shipments reached $3.65B and 8.2M cases.
- For the first time since March 2020, value growth in retail off-premise exceeded value growth in DtC shipments.
- The average price per bottle for DtC shipments continued to decrease while volume increased, and the average price per bottle for retail off-premise continued to increase while volume growth decreased.
- For DtC shipments, bottles under $30 had much higher volume growth than bottles over $30. This resulted in the channel’s average price per bottle dropping almost $4 from last year to just under $44.
- For retail off-premise sales, Sauvignon Blanc and sparkling wines outperformed all other major varietals, with Rosé being the only other varietal reaching double digital growth in both value and volume.
- For the retail off-premise category, Napa and Oregon were the only wine regions that saw double digit gains in both volume and value in November.
- Consumers were generally not celebrating Thanksgiving as they would have in previous years, and with that, wine purchases only saw minimal growth over last year.
Interested in knowing more (e.g., by price tiers, varietals, origin, winery size, geography)? Contact Danny Brager at danny.brager@nielsen.com.
And, stay tuned for a detailed report of the DtC wine shipping market in 2020 via our annual Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report — the 2021 report (2020 look-back) will be released on January 25, 2021.