Wine Tourism Is Drying Up and Nobody Saw It Coming

Hotel prices are slamming wine tourism

How desperate is the US wine business to put a happy face on the bad news?

Consider the latest from Wine Business Analytics, which documented a dramatic fall in DTC sales. Perhaps, said the report, some of the drop could be because some customers are “picking up their wine club shipments rather than shipping them.”

Though, it admitted that it wouldn’t explain everything, given the scale of the sales decline.

“Total shipment volume in July plunged 20% compared to last year, while the 12-month total lags last year by 12%.”

No rescue in sight

Wine tourism and DTC, which, as recently as 2022, were going to rescue the US wine sector from its slump, seem to be suffering just as much as any other part of the business. The latest numbers from several studies, as well as a brief survey of US wine regions, found that the good news was far outweighed by the bad.

The downturn isn’t spread evenly. According to Grape and Wine magazine, from 2023 to 2024, Napa visitation rose 15.9%, while every other western US. region dropped — Central Coast by 5.3%, Sonoma by 17.2%.”

“Wine tourism has pretty much dried up,” says one Sonoma County producer, whose family-owned winery has long attracted wine country visitors. “It’s just too expensive for people to come and stay the weekend, what with the cost of a hotel room.”

While the downturn isn’t news, what is news is how few people expected it. In the 2025 SVB state of the wine industry report, analyst Rob McMillan wrote that while he had expected tourism to increase in 2024, tasting room visits dropped by 5.1%. Visitors were deterred not only by travel costs, but also by near-record tasting room fees. His prediction for 2025 was for levels lower than 2024.

DTC sales are not a perfect proxy for wine tourism, but they are related, since SVB estimates that nearly 90% of wine club memberships start with a tasting room visit; the fall in DTC sales echoes at least some drop in wine tourism.

The Wine Business Analytics study did find some growth at the high end — shipments of wines priced between $80 and $150 gained nearly 3% — but the news overall was negative; every monthly total in 2025 by volume was lower than at the same time in 2024. July is always a difficult month for DTC, noted the report. Still, July 2025 was down 7% compared to July 2016.

“It's just another sign of wine's demand problem that appears to have been exacerbated as consumers grow more skittish about the overall state of the economy, given the sluggish labor market and other indicators,” said the report.

Regional declines beyond the West Coast

Even in non-West Coast regions, which have been the tourism bright spot over the past several years, according to the SVB report, the news is not good. Visitor numbers fell almost 4% in the first quarter this year in Gillespie County, the centre of wine tourism in Texas’ Hill Country, according to the local Convention & Visitors Bureau.

That has not slowed the pace of building. Earlier this year, Hilton announced it was building a luxury complex, Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts, to “provide a central location for visitors looking to indulge in the beauty of Texas Hill Country — the most popular wine-tasting destination in the state, the second most visited wine country in the United States and home to over 100 wineries.”

One Missouri wine official told Drinks Insider that visitors to the Hermann area have cut back from weekend stays to day trips, again because lodging costs are seen as expensive.

“Overall, it’s not too bad,” she says, “but many of the B&Bs still have a two-night minimum, and that’s more than most of the visitors want to pay. So they only stay for the day.”

Plus, there is the fall in international tourism to the US to contend with.

For years, producers insisted that the tasting room would save them. Now even the weekend getaway has become a day trip. Prosperity will hinge on shifting the model, not waiting for tourism to bounce back.

Thank you to the anonymous donor who paid for this article. If you’ve got a burning question about the wine and spirits trade, you can commission Drinks Insider to go and investigate! Drop me a line at felicity@drinksinsider.com

Zeke Blattler and Cory Assink, Los Cuernos

Need a Good News Story?

Zeke and Cory are two wine professionals from California who watched the on-trade with concern over the last decade. When it came to the wine offering, wine lists either featured high-end, fine wine or crappy, but high-margin wine.

The pair also realised that small restaurants were avoiding wine altogether, because they have no ability to store 750 ml bottles, or manage the glassware.

Their solution is Los Cuernos, high-quality canned wine — and it’s been so successful, they can barely keep up with demand.

On this week’s Drinks Insider podcast, not only do they talk about how and why they came up with their solution, but they talk hard numbers. It’s clear they’ve found a genuine gap in the market, and their insights could apply everywhere from New Jersey to New Zealand.

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