One of the themes discussed by export experts and others at the Wine Institute California Wine Export Program annual Export Meeting in Sonoma, is that California wine is positioned for growth in global markets. However, perhaps more importantly, speakers named certain areas of Africa—specifically South Africa, East Africa, Kenya/Tanzania, West Africa countries like Nigeria—and Mexico and Vietnam as key emerging California wine export markets, and Ukraine and Australia as developing California wine export markets and highlighted the organization’s plans, which includes $13 million in funding, to start reaching and expanding into these new regions.

Attendees gathered for the annual event held on July 23 at the Lodge in Sonoma. It included a day’s worth of insightful sessions on changing the narrative on wine, today’s burgeoning export markets for California wine, and dos and don’ts for picking which trade and export shows to attend, among other topics and an afternoon of brainstorming break out sessions. 

Honore Comfort, the vice president of international marketing at the Wine Institute, kicked off the event by talking a little bit about the challenges, but also the bright spots in the wine industry and in US wine exports and export values in 2023. 

In 2023, the US produced $1.2 billion in wine exports, according to data in the presentation from the OIV State of the Wine & Vine Sector 2023. 

“Here in the US We had a significant drop in our export efforts last year, although we’re already in 2024 seeing those trends begin to reverse. In April, China alone was up 300% year over year, which is remarkable…  There is so much seasonality in our export numbers and we are waiting to see how this all washes out, but we are seeing positive trends in markets around the world and in exports of total US wine,” Comfort said.   

She highlighted that California is the fourth largest world wine producer and that US wine exports account for 3% of global wine exports. Canada continues to be the largest export market with more than 30% of our total market share.

Comfort opined it is misleading to look at these sort of numbers alone because she believes they are reflecting a lot of the overall shift out of the lower-price and larger brand aspects of the category; it’s not revealing the growth and the energy that we’re seeing in the super premium, ultra premium and luxury categories.

She noted that there are opportunities in the global marketplace and that California wine is positioned for growth in these global markets; not only is the super/ultra premium and luxury segments still healthy, but she said there are opportunities to grow by leveraging California’s leadership in sustainability and to highlight that the state’s values often aligns with younger consumers’ values.

She recalled a quote from IWSR’S Emily Neill, “Companies need to reorientate their global strategies to target new growth opportunities…Geographic footprint will be increasingly important.” 

To that end, the USDA awarded the Wine Institute and the California Wine Export Program $13 million in funding to help support their efforts with the regional agriculture promotion program to help grow and bolster presence in emerging and developing markets. The funds will be available for five years, though Comfort said they are planning to utilize those funds within a shorter time frame.

A second round of funding will be awarded in May 2025. 

“The whole focus is to build a bigger footprint for California wines around the world,” she said.

The dollars can be used to expand that footprint in the following eligible regions: Africa, Southeast Asia, India, non-European Union countries like the UK, Switzerland and Norway, the Caribbean and Latin and South America.

Emerging and Developing Markets

Marco Tiggelman—California Wine Export Program Scandinavian, Continental and Eastern Europe representative—and other panelists emphasized that it’s important to understand the difference between emerging and developing marketing because it’s important to be aware of the different routes to these two markets. Each requires different strategies in your portfolio and in price.

An emerging market includes countries that are emerging as new wine markets. Typically these are countries that have a youthful demographic with a rapidly developing economy where English isn’t often spoken. The reason for consumption is often status-driven and food & wine culture is often non-existent with limited wine knowledge and a focus on beer/spirits, though there’s often attractive tourist destinations.

Developing wine markets include countries that have established wine markets but are new to California wine. These regions often have a developed wine and food & wine knowledge where the reason for consumption is just part of the lifestyle and mainly from that region’s own wine production.

While South Africa is a well developed and well known wine region, it isn’t that way for many other regions in Africa, which is why they want to focus on the emerging market areas of the Southern region, Mozambique and Namibia; the Eastern region, Kenya and Tanzania; the Western region, Nigeria, Angola, Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire and the island regions, Mauritius and Seychelles.   

Marco Tiggelman said their first focus will be in-market presentation of California wines. For early spring, 2025, the export program has tentative plans to conduct a seminar and tastings importers and other trade personnel in Nairobi, Lagos and Johannesburg and in the fall, to hold a tentative export Africa webinar for vintners.      

Vietnam of course is a very early-stage wine market with a strong prospect for growth as its population and GDP continue to rise, according to the presentation and panelist Hiro Tejima, California Wine Export Program joint trade director for North Asia and Australia. 

“Another characteristic of Vietnam is that it is pro-American which is clearly an advantage for us,” Tejima added, noting that the population is still poorer overall and so wine is reserved for middle and upper-class locals as well as expats in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi as well as tourists visiting places like Da Nang, a key target city. 

In terms of the organization's focus for this region, Tejima said they aim to do wine education and tasting and engagement opportunities with California vintners.

Mexico is also an emerging market as it attracts tourism, and has one of the largest demographics for selling alcohol—alcohol can be consumed in Mexico at age 18 and 9 million people live in Mexico City alone. Additionally, wine is increasingly being viewed as fashionable. They are doing promotions and offering wine education through their Capstone program as well as organizing activities with trade groups.    

“We have a lot of potential to build good clients,” Adriana Cadena, the program’s trade director for Mexico, said of the region.

Ukraine and Australia are the developing markets for California wine.  

While you might not think of Ukraine as a developing market Tiggelman said that the country already has a long history of winemaking and had a booming sparkling wine production in Crimea. “So this is not necessarily an emerging wine market. People do know wine here but it’s a developing wine market for California,” he said.

He said market intelligence shows us that consumer spending during the Ukraine War are even back to pre-war levels and people have a “carpe diem” approach to life, wanting to go out and wine and dine in cities like Odessa and Kiev. He noted there is room for growth there; they will be appointing an in-market representation in Kiev to help implement activities like Capstone and help support importers.

For the developing market of Australia, markets of most importance include coastal and capital cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.