{"id":178340,"date":"2021-02-14T23:27:32","date_gmt":"2021-02-14T20:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/wine-tariffs-are-crushing-us-importers\/"},"modified":"2021-02-14T23:27:32","modified_gmt":"2021-02-14T20:27:32","slug":"wine-tariffs-are-crushing-us-importers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wine-tariffs-are-crushing-us-importers\/","title":{"rendered":"#Wine tariffs are crushing US importers"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Wine tariffs are crushing US importers<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Wine sellers struggling to survive the pandemic are now also getting slammed by Uncle Sam\u2019s fight with the European Union over aircraft subsidies. <\/p>\n

Mom-and-pop wine importers are facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in added expenses this year due to ever-increasing US tariffs slapp<\/a>ed on wines imported from Europe. It\u2019s forcing these businesses to cut pay and staff \u2014 and raise prices on customers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to put some people out of business for sure,\u201d said David Bowler, owner of Bowler Wine of Manhattan, an importer and distributor. \u201cIt\u2019s like getting kicked when you\u2019re already down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The family-owned company was forced to pay $28,000 in tariffs earlier this month, or $16,000 more than it would have paid had two shipments from Europe arrived when they were supposed to on Jan. 11.<\/p>\n

The slight delay of the 1,987 cases containing 23,844 bottles from mostly France to New York City were immedia<\/a>tely subject to tariffs that became effective on Jan. 12 \u2014 despite the fact that the wines were ordered and shipped before the tariffs were put in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cOvernight a $12,000 bill turned into $28,000,\u201d Bowler lamented.<\/p>\n

The money grab kicked off in October 2019, when the Office of the US Trade Representative slapped a 25 percent tax on certain wines imported from France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The tariffs covered wines with less than 14 percent alcohol, including many Ros\u00e9s, Sancerres and Rieslings. <\/p>\n

Things got worse on Dec. 30 when the USTR extended the tariffs to cover wines containing more than 14 percent alcohol \u2014 delivering a crushing blow to the industry.<\/p>\n

US importers, who had never paid anything more than pennies on the bottle in import duties are now forking out 25 percent taxes on some of the wines they import from the UK, Spain \u2014 and on all of the wines they import from Germany and France, which is arguably the most important wine exporter in the world. <\/p>\n

Premium cognacs that cost $38 or more per liter were also added to the latest round of costly import taxes.<\/p>\n

Bowler\u2019s company, which employs 37 people including his wife and two sons, took a 10 percent hit in revenues in 2020 \u2014 only the second decline in its 17 years in business, he said. <\/p>\n

Bowler already cut his and his wife\u2019s salaries by 20 percent and senior executives\u2019 pay by 10 percent. The sales reps, whose commissions plummeted last year due to restaurant closures, were paid 90 percent of their 2019 income with the help of a Payroll Protection Program loan, Bowler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were expecting to be up by five percent last year before the tariffs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Manhattan-based Vintus Wines, a family-owned importer and distributor to restaurants and wine stores, is facing an eye-popping $540,000 tax bill for orders scheduled to arrive in just the first two months of the year.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s on top of the extra $1.8 million in tariffs Vintus paid over the past 14 months during the first round of taxes, President Alexander Michas told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\"Alexander
Alexander Michas of Vintus Wines. <\/figcaption>
Alexander Michas<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so frustrating,\u201d Michas said. \u201cWe feel like we have no control over our business.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tariffs are meant to pressure the EU over its subsidies to Airbus, which competes with US-based Boeing and which is politically backed by France, Germany, Spain and the UK.<\/p>\n

But American wine importers say they are the ones being punished instead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t the point of the argument,\u201d Michas said. \u201cWe\u2019ve just been dragged along and everyone feels sorry for us.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

To afford the extra cash outlay, Vintus has eliminated its marketing expenses, and it will not fill three new positions it had hoped to add to the family-owned business early this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are kicking US businesses in the gut in the middle of a pandemic,\u201d added Ben Aneff, president of the US Wine Trade Alliance.<\/p>\n

Aneff, who is appealing to the Biden administration to lower the tariffs, says Bordeaux labels, which general<\/a>ly have a higher alcohol content, are going to be hit particularly hard. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe honeymoon is over for Bordeaux,\u201d sad Aneff, adding that Bordeaux from France\u2019s Right Bank region and wines from its Rhone Valley will now see a spike in prices.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just Bordeaux. A Karine Lauverjat Sancerre that sells for about $22 at retail will soon go up to about $28, according to Bowler, which might dissuade some consumers from purchasing it. Still, demand for less expensive wines from other parts of the world or even for American wines has not increased, say importers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone wants a Sancerre, that\u2019s what they want,\u201d Bowler said. \u201cWine is not one of these things that people are willing to compromise on.\u201d This is especially true for restaurants, which like to hold a robust selection of French wines, Michas said. \u201cThey need to have products that consumers know and trust,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsumers who pay on average $15 for a bottle are paying closer to $20 now or a $15 glass of Sancerre at a restaurant is likely $17 now,\u201d Michas said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the wines Vintas is receiving this month and next are those from E. Guigal of the Rhone Valley, which range in price from less than $20 a bottle to hundreds of dollars.<\/p>\n

A 2018 vintage of Chateau Troplong Mondot of the Right Bank, which sells for about $110 a bottle, will soon cost about $140 as they reach retailers, Daniel Posner owner of Grapes The Wine Co. in White Plains, NY, told The Post.<\/p>\n

Even though 50 percent of his sales are French wines, Posner is holding back on bringing in some of these tariffed wines. <\/p>\n

Posner scaled back on the number of Sancerre labels he carries from 10 to four and on everyday wines from the Cotes du Rhone region that might have cost $12, but now $15 due to the tariff.<\/p>\n

One of his wealthy customers recently asked for a case of 2018 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which typically goes for about $1,000 a bottle, but now it\u2019ll cost $1,250 a bottle, Posner said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want my customers to pay $3,000 in tariffs, so I asked him to wait at least until the fall, when the tariff will be re-evaluated,\u201d Posner said, referring to the cost of the tariffs on a case of 12 bottles.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Wine tariffs are crushing US importers” Wine sellers struggling to survive the pandemic are now also getting slammed by Uncle Sam\u2019s fight with the European Union over aircraft subsidies. Mom-and-pop wine importers are facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in added expenses this year due to ever-increasing US tariffs slapped on wines imported from Europe….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/02\/eu-tariffs-wine1.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[93270,1545,93342,72771],"class_list":["post-178340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2-14-21","tag-coronavirus","tag-tariffs","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}