In March, Mykel McIntosh was ready to shutter her St. Louis wine bar, squeezed by a looming 200 percent tariff on the European wines that filled her cellar. A few weeks later, she’s back in business—sort of. A sudden pivot in U.S. trade policy offered temporary relief, but it didn’t bring clarity. Like wine merchants across the country, McIntosh is navigating a volatile tariff landscape in which business plans shift by the day.
On April 2, the Trump administration announced a 10 percent blanket tariff on nearly all imported goods plus a set of “retaliatory tariffs” on certain regions. For the wine industry, this added up to a 20 percent tariff on imports from the European Union, 30 percent on South African wines, and 10 percent on those from Chile, Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina. But just a week later, on April 9, Trump issued a 90-day freeze on those specific “retaliatory tariffs” — while still enforcing the 10 percent blanket tariff.
Though McIntosh said she’s “super ecstatic” about the tariff freeze, she’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. “We just don’t know what’s gonna happen, right?” she says. “Because he’s just so quick to change his mind at the last second. It’s just so erratic.”
Long term, McIntosh said she’ll be more judicious about the producers and distributors she works with — focusing on those who could absorb some of the costs from potential tariffs.
Like McIntosh, small-business owners across the U.S. wine industry have been facing ongoing confusion and uncertainty as they come up with, implement, and then backtrack business strategies in response to tariff announcements. The tariff whiplash comes at a time of declining sales, closing wineries, production disruptions from climate change, rising alcohol abstinence, and ongoing price increases on household goods that would deter customers from discretionary wine spending.
King, a lauded French and Italian restaurant in New York City, builds its menu on Old World wine pairings. Its new spring dish pairs with a Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley. The pairing produces a “harmonious, gorgeous mouthful of food and wine,” said co-owner Anne Shi. “To recreate that [with any other wine, let alone an American one] is impossible, because every wine is unique to its specific micro-ecosystem.”
“We’re playing it day by day. There’s a lot of confusion.”
Shi said distributors, facing the 200 percent tariff last month, had paused their European orders. In response, she’s purchased more wines to sell by the glass at higher margins than a bottle. “We’re playing it day by day,” she said. “There’s a lot of confusion.”
The wait-and-see attitude also applies to Adam Linet, owner of Vino Fine Wine and Spirits in New York City. Of the 1,000-plus wines and spirits he carries, about 70 percent are imported. On Tuesday morning, a distributor emailed him that the purchase price of three French wines en route to him had increased by 15 percent.
Linet says he’s not planning to change his product mix, because the variety makes the wine market “so amazing.” However, he’s weighing a few options: 1) reduce the store’s inventory and restock more slowly until the tariffs end; 2) add a 20 percent “Trump tariff” line item across the store; or 3) increase prices as suppliers raise them on a per-item basis.
“I really have no idea what’s going to come to us. We’re in a sit-and-wait position, which is aggravating.”
“It’s been hard to figure out what to do, because even as of [Tuesday] morning, the E.U. is saying that they’re willing to talk with Trump now about going to 0 percent on everything,” Linet said. “I really have no idea what’s going to come to us. We’re in a sit-and-wait position, which is aggravating.”
In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Paula de Pano, owner of Rocks + Acid Wine Shop, reacted swiftly to Trump’s tariff news. She increased her inventory of European wines after Trump threatened 200 percent tariffs in March (almost all of her wines come from Europe, and her shop’s max capacity is 3,000 bottles). To stabilize retail sales, de Pano says she’s focusing on promoting her classes and other events. She has also switched some higher-margin by-the-glass wines to American alternatives, like a pinot noir from Oregon, “but marketing these wines is an uphill battle,” she said.
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