High-End Wines Began Recovery In January, Imports Still Lag

New data prepared by Information Resources Inc. for Wine Industry Insight shows that sales of wines priced at more than $20 per bottle began to recover in January, 2009.

VIP Premium Content Subscribers, click here to get the  full-sized chart and download the Excel spreadsheet with a complete data set and three more charts. [$VIP]

28-MONTH DATA SHOWS HIGH-END WINES IN DECLINE SINCE 2006

The IRI data [$VIP], tracking high-end wines back more than two years shows that wines selling for more than $20 per bottle began to decline faster than the wine market as a whole as far back as December 2006.

The same data show that the high-end sector began to recover before the market as a whole and has shown greater percentage gains.

BIG HIGH-IMPORT GAINS HELPED SPARK DOMESTIC DECLINES

The data also shows that at the beginning of 2007, high-end imports surged, riding a price wave buoyed by a $5 per bottle price lower average price.

A comparison of both charts show that high-end domestic wines began to decline just as imports accelerated.

In addition, tracking import and domestic wines separately, also shows that the domestic decline trend line has been far more moderate than imports.

IMPORT/DOMESTIC PRICE DIFFERENTIAL DECLINES 20 PERCENT

The spreadsheet data [$VIP] shows gradual domestic price reductions over the past 28 months. This meant that by the four-week period ending April 19, 2009, domestic high-end wines had cut prices by an average of $1.28 per bottle and imports by just $0.39.  This reduced the price differential to about $4 per bottle.