Update: Wine prices 2022 – have prices started to drop in time for the holidays?

Three more signs wine prices may be easing

In August, I wrote – perhaps more hopefully than I should have – that the law of supply and demand could finally be catching up with wine prices. And now there might be evidence of just that.

The key here is that each harvest brings more wine, whether it’s needed or not. This is much different than manufactured products; if there’s no demand, the company just stops making the product. Wine doesn’t work that way. As my long-time pal and noted wine executive Dan Peabody famously said, “When the new crop of grapes comes in, you have to move out the old to make room for it. You just can’t keep it around and wait for it to sell.”

So far, as noted the last time, wine has been able to find a way around this problem. But maybe not much longer:

• Remember all those stories about poor harvests this year in France? Not really. The 2022 harvest will be 18 percent bigger than last year and four percent higher than the five-year average. Which means wineries need to move the current vintage out – even at lower prices – to make room for all those grapes.

• One of the leading wine consultancies says demand for the most expensive wines – which has propped up the market for the past several years – is slowing, and that slowdown will start around the holidays.

• Check out inventories, both at retail and on-line, and there are lots and lots – and lots — of older and previous vintages. The only way to move those wines is to reduce prices, and I’m already seeing a little of that. One previous vintage $25 Italian wine was half-off at one Dallas retailer.

Does this mean we’ll see lots of sales and markdowns over the next three months? It seems more likely than it did six months ago. Regardless, it looks like there mighty finally be a crack in the dam that is holding up higher prices.