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Is it goodbye or au revoir to 2025? Bad things happened this year, to Canada and the world, so maybe good riddance. On the other hand, I had a pretty good year personally and professionally. Sometimes that’s how it goes. The wine world as a whole is not particularly in great shape. Less wine is being drunk and sold. This year, the International Organisation of Wine and Vine think tank reported that wine consumption by volume in 2024 was as low as it was in 1961, despite a half-century of population growth. On the other hand, the Ontario winemakers I hung out with in Niagara in July, and who I see in Toronto from time to time, are reporting one of their best years ever. Their stories checked out: the LCBO reported a 67 percent growth in Ontario-made wine sales between February and October. This had a lot to do with the provincial ban on the sales of U.S. wine. Mark Carney called Donald Trump a “transformational” president, so if he transformed a few more of us into local wine consumers, we ought to take the win. I was in France on April 2nd, the so-called “Liberation Day,” when Trump announced the tariff rates. I was at a party hosted by Michel Chapoutier at his family’s Tain winery in the Northern Rhône Valley. It was well into the evening, and the wine had been flowing from giant bottles named after Biblical kings that required special levers to be poured. The mood that night, among the French wine trade and international press that had gathered, was one of celebration. There was clapping and hooting and glasses clinking when Chapoutier climbed on stage to deliver the news. A duty of “only” 15 percent seemed much better than whatever had been previously either threatened, hinted at, or imagined. It turned out to be a good night, but I think I’d rather be in a cellar in Champagne when free trade is reestablished and valued in the free world. Seven or eight months later, the party is definitely over. The mood among European producers whom I’ve met in Canada, often on their way to or from seeing their U.S. importers, is much more subdued and worrisome. Many exported as much as they could to the U.S. before the tariffs were imposed. The stocks of that inventory are now beginning to deplete. The question is, who’s going to pay the extra 15 percent? Most of the producers who have been willing to talk to me about it said they were working on an even split. The winery would swallow 5 percent of the cost, the importer another 5 percent, with consumers paying extra to make up the difference. Either way, everyone is a bit poorer. It’s possible that Canadian wine consumers will benefit if our market looks a lot easier to deal with than the one below the border. As I type, the Canadian dollar seems to be doing a bit better against the U.S. buck and the Euro. If this attracts more wine imports, then that could only be good. The trouble is that the non-U.S. wine producers who export to Canada will have to be in business to send us their wine. Even though something like two-thirds to three-quarters of U.S. wine consumption is domestically produced, that’s still a much bigger market. On the other hand, if global consumer demand for American exports behaves like demand for tourism to the States, maybe that wine can be sold elsewhere after all. The trouble is that for all that wine to be sold, Canadian wine consumers will need to be in business to buy it. I have no real-time statistics on how wine sales are going in this country as we come up to the holidays. This is the time of year when the most expensive and profitable wine is sold. I am not detecting a surfeit of cheer among the wine trade and their ancillary industry restaurants and hospitality. Still, in November, the professional association, Restaurants Canada, reported some growth in the industry in 2025 up to the end of the third quarter. One factor for increased sales may have been increased domestic tourism, as Canadians stayed away from the border. But Restaurants Canada speaks for every kind of kitchen operation in the country. The story from the ones that operate as fine dining, selling fine wines, may be different. If cost of living continues to be an issue for all but the ultra-wealthy, then the kind of discretionary spending that lets a neighbourhood bistro mark up a $30 bottle of wine to $70 plus tax and tip is the kind that gets cut first. There aren’t a lot of people in business who will tell a journalist that things aren’t going well. But sometimes, they will hint that times are tough for others or all around. I have heard from some suppliers that restaurants are ever more slow to pay their bills. I have heard from restaurants that suppliers are complaining of decreased sales. Rumours aside, I see full carts in the wine section of my local provincial retailer. I also see a lot more wines retailing for between $15 and $20, where a year ago I would have said the balance was at $20 to $25. The point being the general quality of the wine is the same, but many producers seem to be discounting back to pre-pandemic pricing. I studied law as a young man, but ultimately decided to pursue a career in other fields. My principal objection to lawyering was that it was paid by the hour. Having been a legal client, I understand even better how those hours can add up; there are few issues in law that don’t seem to benefit from more investigation. Wine making can be something like that. There are few inputs into the production of a bottle that can’t be increased: fancy new equipment in the cellar, or expensive new vineyards. Joe Bastianich estimated the maximum amount of money that could be spent making a bottle of wine was $100, 20 years ago, ironically in opposition to ridiculously high bottle prices. When the market for $30 bottles of wine was growing, extra costs could be justified by more sales or price increases. Wine sales were already slumping before the economic chaos of 2025. It’s hard to see how that trend gets reversed any time soon. But, just as there seems to be some democratic push-back Stateside against the great tariff maker, maybe there’s some push-back against too much fancy wine and not enough good, democratically priced wine around the world. We could all use a break and a full glass of whatever to toast a happy new year.
Dining and Cooking