Wine Shipping Gains Momentum as Sales Top $1.35 Billion

Comprehensive Report Shows Direct-To-Consumer Wine Shipments Critical to Winery Success; Account for 8.6% of Total American Wine Retail Sales

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ShipCompliant and Wines & Vines Magazine today released the most comprehensive report ever published on the state of the winery-to-consumer direct shipping channel. Looking at the 12-month period ending with July 2012, the new report shows that the winery shipping channel has now grown to $1.35 billion, representing 8.6% of the total U.S. wine retail market. During the 12-month period, the volume of wine shipped direct to consumers increased 7.2% over the previous 12-month period, while the value of shipments increased by 10.3%—far outpacing the rate of growth for the overall wine retail sector.

“Based on this report, that importance continues to grow as more and more wineries augment their other distribution channels with the high margin sales that come through the direct shipping channel, as well as build their brands and establish important relationships directly with individual consumers.”

The Direct-To-Consumer Shipping Report is available for download at: www.shipcompliant.com/shippingreport.

The report looks at numerous aspects of the winery-to-consumer shipping channel including:

- Shipments by winery size
- Shipments by product price-point
- Shipments by geographic location of origin
- Shipments by wine type
- Destination of shipments
- Monthly shipment trends

“The importance of the direct-to-consumer shipping channel for wineries can’t be underestimated,” said Jason Eckenroth, president of ShipCompliant. “Based on this report, that importance continues to grow as more and more wineries augment their other distribution channels with the high margin sales that come through the direct shipping channel, as well as build their brands and establish important relationships directly with individual consumers.”

Among the findings in the report are:

• Four States Get The Most Wine: California, Texas, New York and Florida account for 54% of all shipments from wineries.
• Three Varietals Account for Bulk of Shipments: Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay account for nearly 60% of all wines shipped during the period.
• Larger Wineries are Increasing Their Shipments: While medium sized wineries account for the majority of volume of wines shipped, larger wineries saw the greatest percent increase in volume of wines shipped.
• Napa Valley Dominates. Shipments of wine from Napa wineries account for 50% of the value of the direct shipping channel, while accounting for only 34% of the volume.

The report is based on millions of anonymized transactions that ultimately led to direct shipments to consumers and that were originally run through the ShipCompliant compliance platform between August 2011 and July 2012. Using Wines & Vines’ comprehensive database of all 7,400+ wineries across the United States, the ShipCompliant transactions are the basis to project estimates across all wineries using multiple stratifications including but not limited to location of winery, annual production of winery, bottle price, specified varietals, and destination of shipment.

ABOUT SHIPCOMPLIANT

Founded in 2002 and located in Boulder, Colorado, ShipCompliant is the leader in automated alcohol beverage compliance services. ShipCompliant provides wine and spirits suppliers and importers with a full suite of web-based software tools to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations for direct and wholesale distribution. ShipCompliant works with the industry’s leading software providers and fulfillment companies to provide fully integrated solutions for direct and three-tier distribution. For more information, please visit: http://www.shipcompliant.com.

ABOUT WINES & VINES MAGAZINE

Wines & Vines offers a comprehensive collection of products providing news, information, and marketing and research capabilities. Its monthly magazine, Wines & Vines, and its Directory/Buyer's Guide and Online Marketing System provides a wide range of information solutions to the wine and grape industry. For more information see http://www.winesandvines.com.