04/15/2025

With Tariffs in Flux, Wine Sellers Rewrite Their Business Plans—Again

A chaotic month of tariff threats and policy reversals has rocked the wine industry

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 Argentina, Australia, Chile and New Zealand. 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 is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. "We just don't know what's gonna happen, right?" she said. "Because he's just so quick to change his mind at the last second. It's just so erratic."

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