We can definitively say that 2021 was a good year for the US wine industry — not a great year or a bad year, but a good year. Reopening tasting rooms, hotels and restaurants, along with thawing travel, rejuvenated sales opportunities in those venues. 

Restaurant sales of alcohol recovered and surpassed pre-pandemic measures at least on a same-store basis, while direct-to-consumer (DTC sales grew and internet sales maintained their strong pandemic-era performance. Mergers and acquisition (M&A transactions were by all accounts the strongest ever, underscored by the first IPOs of major wineries in 20 years.1 Strikingly, almost 30 percent of winery owners finished the year believing 2021 was not just much better than 2020, but their best year ever!