The BCLDB (the government wholesale liquor monopoly) releases a quarterly Liquor Market Review, which often contains useful information on wine sales and trends in the BC marketplace. They recently released the review for Q2 of 2025-2026 which covers off the sales period from July-September 2025. Compared to the previous year, wine sales declined by 2.3% for this quarter (about $7m in value on total sales of $289m).
During this time, the BC Government maintained a direction to BCLDB wholesale to stop importing US alcohol products and to remove such products from the shelves of BC Government liquor stores. Existing stock remained for sale in private channels (e.g. private retailers, bars, restaurants). Compared to a year earlier, sales of US wines dropped dramatically during this quarter – down over 73%.
Where did those customers go? The recently released numbers show that those customers mostly continued to buy wine (although sales were down just over 2% as mentioned) … and that mostly they switched to other import countries. Here are the statistics for the larger wine regions.
| Country | 2024 Q2 (000s) | 2025 Q2 (000s) | % change |
| Argentina | 5987 | 7346 | +23% |
| Australia | 10110 | 11695 | +16% |
| Canada BC | 146626 | 149039 | +1.6% |
| Chile | 10723 | 11681 | +8.9% |
| France | 25769 | 27587 | +7% |
| Italy | 28195 | 30027 | +6.4% |
| NZ | 13386 | 15307 | +14% |
| Spain | 5406 | 6151 | +14% |
| USA | 28390 | 7547 | -73.4% |
Here are a few observations from the above numbers.
– Firstly, there’s only a small 1.6% sales increase for the “Canada BC” category. In the previous quarter, this category had logged a 6% sales increase. However, I note that the BCLDB includes both “blended in Canada” wines (made from imported grapes/juice) and 100% BC wines in this group, so that complicates the analysis. The sales numbers for 100% BC wine, and for individual wineries, may be different. These numbers are further complicated by the presence of vintage replacement wines (mostly made from U.S. grapes) in the marketplace.
– Some countries have been big winners … notable sales increases for Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain … with smaller increases for Chile, France, and Italy. This should obviously worry US producers as it may be hard to get these customers back once the trade issues get resolved.
– Local importers who were able to bolster their losses in U.S. sales with increases from their non-U.S. winery clients may have been able to survive a tricky quarter … but importers whose portfolios were more dependent upon U.S. sales will have experienced a very challenging economic quarter. There is no doubt that some importers will have had to take drastic action as a result, particularly as large amounts of U.S. inventory are generating few sales.
– The continued decline in overall wine sales (down again by over 2%) is worrying for the wine industry overall. Whether this is due to changing demographics, general economic worries or health concerns, it is troubling to see erosion in a market that once saw continuous growth.
– The above figures are for wholesale sales … they are probably also representative of retail sales but there could be some differences.