U. S. Table Wine Consumption, State Regulations, and Market Potentials

¹ Department of Agricultural Economics, Washington Agricultural Experiment Station, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99163

Associated with the increasing affluence of our society has been a change in the tastes and preferences of its consumers. One such change has been the increasing demand for table wines — those naturally fermented to contain 14% or less alcohol. The objective of this paper is twofold: 1) to estimate the regional magnitude of change and the individual state levels in the consumption of U. S. table wines; and 2) to investigate the possible effects of various state regulations on table wine consumption. The interaction of consumption trends with legal constraints is one of the main determinants of the market potential of table wines. The level of taxation imposed by individual states was used to measure the degree of legal constraints. As the level of taxation increased, the consumption of U. S. table wines decreased. The weighted average estimated per capita consumption of U. S. table wines for low taxation states was 0.48 gallon and 0.24 gallon for the medium and high taxation states.