Wine Has Entered Its Post-Growth Era

Why wine's next era will reward durability over expansion

For nearly forty years, the wine industry pursued one dominant objective: ceaseless growth. Across multiple expansion cycles, new wineries seemed to open every day. New markets emerged everywhere. Wine lists grew deeper under expert hands, and consumers entered the category in ever-increasing numbers, embracing the gracious lifestyle wine was selling. For a long time, expansion felt permanent. The assumption was simple: next year would be bigger; the only question was, by how much?

Sales teams expanded geographically, portfolios widened, labels proliferated, imports expanded, and planting, re-planting, and production increased. Pricing discipline often loosened because growth absorbed inefficiency. If a wine struggled in one market or if a distributor lost interest, another distributor could be found. The expansion period created room for experimentation and allowed the weaknesses in the system to remain largely invisible. Growth concealed a great deal.

Since around 2017 or 2018, with COVID as the accelerant, the wine trade has begun behaving differently. Distributor portfolios had ballooned, then tightened, while bank lending conditions grew less forgiving. Retail shelves became much more systematic, group-dominated, with their own hyper-consolidated buyer class. Restaurant lists grew increasingly shorter and more selective (read: safer/dumber). The comfortable middle of the market became less comfortable, especially for inventory that once moved predictably but now lingers.

Many observers interpret these developments as signs of crisis. Read enough hand-wringing headlines, and you might conclude that wine itself is losing relevance. I, for one, do not think that is what is happening at all. Something else is underway.

The wine industry is not collapsing. It is entering a post-growth phase.

This does not mean growth disappears. Strong wineries will still expand, and some will do so confidently. But in a mature market, growth is no longer ambient. The market itself no longer does as much of the work for you. Expansion must be earned more deliberately, usually at higher cost, and often because one business is taking share while another weakens.

In a post-growth market, employing the same expansion-period behavior carries more risk. Post-growth buyers prefer fewer wines they understand well. Retailers remember discounts, including the ones they didn’t get. Distributors hesitate to open new placements unless they believe the wine will actually sell through. Since 2018, distribution has been consolidated into fewer, more powerful gatekeepers, a trend that continues relentlessly. Consumers gained dramatically more beverage alternatives competing for the same moments of consumption, even as occasions began fading from society. None of these forces, taken alone, is catastrophic per se, but together they reshape the operating environment for the entire industry.

Seen through this lens, many developments in the wine trade look less like crisis and more like maturation, though whether that offers comfort is another question. The distributor consolidation reflects the rapidly growing importance of scale. Restaurant lists are shorter because operators cannot support the economics of large, complex programs. Grocery shelves behave less like marketplaces and more like logistical systems, and wines succeed there not only because they persuade buyers, but because they fit the economic mechanics of the shelf.

The big squeeze in the $20–$50 tier follows the same logic. During expansion, that range felt stable because it occupied the middle of a growing market. Post-growth, the middle becomes unstable as consumers gravitate toward strong value wines, value propositions, or wines that can clearly justify their higher prices. Wines in between must work harder and faster to explain themselves to consumers and gatekeepers.

Over the past year, while writing a series of essays on wine business mechanics, a pattern became difficult to ignore. Each piece addressed a practical issue that wineries were confronting: pricing discipline, distributor consolidation, SKU proliferation, and the changing role of sales teams.

At first, these looked like separate problems. Stepping back revealed they were symptoms of the same transition. The wine business was moving from an expansion industry to a durability industry. Once that became clear, the rest of the argument organized itself. I began writing my second book around the central question of what durability now requires of a wine business.

The first questions are about the systems shaping the market: wholesale consolidation, the logic of grocery retail, and the increasingly mechanical behavior of large shelves.

From there, the focus shifts inward, toward the decisions wineries control: pricing coherence, portfolio discipline, and the instability of the once-comfortable middle tier.

Eventually, the focus turns to the organizations themselves: how sales teams behave when growth slows, how brands become operational rather than narrative, and why leadership in a mature industry begins to favor restraint over speed.

By the time those threads come together, the conclusion becomes difficult to avoid. The wine industry emerging from this adjustment will likely be smaller than the one that came before it, which is bound to make some people uncomfortable.

But smaller does not necessarily mean weaker. My contention is that maturity produces clarity. Once inefficient distribution disappears, overextended portfolios contract. Businesses without stable demand begin to crack and fade. What remains becomes easier for consumers to understand, for better or worse. Stronger brands become more recognizable, and pricing discipline improves.

Beer experienced a similar transition after the explosive expansion of craft. Spirits followed a comparable path as premium brands consolidated their positions. Luxury goods have long operated under similar dynamics. And so wine, despite its cultural mystique, ultimately follows the same economic gravity as other consumer industries.

Newspapers offer an unexpectedly useful comparison as well. They did not weaken because quality disappeared, but because long-established habits weakened faster than the industry’s assumptions about demand. Wine increasingly faces a similar adjustment: quality remains, but the market no longer reliably rewards its mere presence as it did before. Cultural legitimacy does not exempt an industry from maturity.

For wineries, the implication is simple and uncomfortable: strategies that worked during expansion are probably not the strategies that will work now. Sales teams that once chased velocity now protect account stability and the long-term relationships that make production more predictable.

The businesses that succeed in the next phase of the wine industry will be the ones that have learned to operate sustainably and durably in a mature market.

Durability rarely looks dramatic while it is happening. It appears in disciplined decisions: simplifying portfolios, protecting pricing integrity, choosing distribution carefully, and resisting the temptation to chase every opportunity. In a post-growth industry, restraint is no longer caution. It is a strategy.

And now, for something completely different…

Benessere Vineyards in Napa Valley is bringing real Italian varietals to the forefront, and with this stellar and truly fun lineup, you’re bound to find something to love. I enjoyed this tasting quite a bit!

2023 Sangiovese (Estate) – It’s got the color of a Chianti, but the nose of a warm, open field in Napa on a summer day. Soft, lush almost, with red fruits, and a little vanilla oak. Soft tannins, lower acidity, but lifts up on the finish. Delightful.

2022 Sagrantino (Estate) – Through a glass darkly. Densely colored red, with a lot of black cherry, Coca-Cola, leaning to Dr. Pepper a little on the nose. Dark chocolatey and perfumed. Rich in the mouth, but only medium full – soft, plentiful acids, and a bit of tannin. Sizzles on the finish. Drink with herb and garlic lamb.

2023 Montepulciano (Estate) – Only 75 cases made. Superb color of deep, deep garnet, dark rubies. Incredibly complex nose, still a bit shy, but shows off its depth. The fruit here is exotic, and sometimes a bit of lavender or jasmine, or real violets arrive. Candied rose petals are soft, rich, and mouth-filling. A completely new experience for me in Napa wine.

2023 Phenomenon (Estate) – A soaring blend of Merlot, Syrah, Cab, Montepulciano, Sangiovese, and Aglianico that really works. Smells Super-Tuscan-y. Ripe, rich, black, and blue fruits dominate, with a very light dusting of spices. Acids are soft and easy, with a little grip and lift at the end. Not just mouthfilling but exciting too. I went back for more.

2023 Primitivo (Estate) – Oh wow, so good. Fresh Zinfandel bramble and crushed berries leap out of the glass at first. Baking spices, a little vanilla and lots of floral notes, plus more of those crushed berries, blueberries and raspberries in the mouth. Strawberry preserves for the win – the fruit is sweet and lovely – but the wine is dry and gorgeous.