How are Tariffs Impacting the Wine Industry?

Curious about tariffs and wine production? Linganore’s President and Executive Winemaker, Anthony Aellen, breaks it down for you with an in depth look at how quality and reliable sourcing contributes and affects our wine industry!

Watch the full clip here or continue reading below.

Good morning, Anthony Aellen. A question that I’ve received is, what are all the tariffs and things going to do to the wine industry?

Well to know how tariffs will affect us, know your parts of wine.

So you have the grapes and all the grapes are grown here so we don’t have to worry about tariffs.

You ferment the grapes.

Well, these are packets of yeast and almost all of the yeast is produced outside the country, mainly in Europe. So when the tariffs go in, we’re going to be hit with tariffs there.

Then you get into the fermentation and the aging, and then cask. Here we have American casks and French oak casks, so obviously we’re going to get hit with tariffs again for the French oak.

Then you get into bottling.

I’ve worked tirelessly for the past 15 years to source things in the US and glass is one of them. The the Chinese have been working on getting their glass into the US wine market and I refuse to buy Chinese glass.

I found a US Producer and I’ve been with them now forever, Ardagh up in the border of Pennsylvania and New York that supplies all of our glass with the exception of 3 specialty molds, the Jack Frost mold, the the Indulgence mold, and the Profondità mold, so it’s as much of American product as I can possibly make it.

Once the the bottles are filled, then they’re corked.

I can’t find a US cork producer, so all of our corks come from Portugal, so that again has the implication of maybe having a tariff on it. [Want to take a trip to a Portugal cork forest? Join Anthony on Linganore’s 50 year anniversary Portugal Trip.]

Then the wine gets labeled.

All of our labels are printed up in New York, so they’re all in-country.

I’ve worked tirelessly to try to keep as much stuff in the US, make it all US sourced, but there are some things you just can’t, so it’s just the way it is.

From our home to yours, enjoy.

Anthony Aellen shares his almost 50 years of winemaking wisdom on our Instagram through weekly reels we like to call, “Wednesday’s Wine Words of Wisdom”. Follow along as he dives more into the behind the scenes of winemaking, and feel to reach out to us directly to get your burning wine questions answered!