Americans Are Drinking Less. What Does That Mean for Winemakers in the Heartland?

By Rachel Cramer

In northern Iowa, the morning sun lights up a vineyard surrounded by corn fields. The grape harvest is well underway with a machine pulled by a small tractor.

Anne Zwink sips on coffee as she watches the harvester comb trellises, shaking grapes loose from the vine. Zwink is Soldier Creek Winery’s award-winning winemaker and president of the Iowa Wine Growers Association.

“We’re actually harvesting four varieties today because everything became ripe all at once last week in the heat,” she said.

The machine tips 600 pounds of La Crescent, a cold-hardy and disease-resistant grape, into a large bin. The harvest has been lower than average this year, Zwink says. The vines are still recovering from a four-year drought, and a few acres were damaged by herbicide drift from nearby fields.

But Zwink says the biggest challenge for her family’s winery and others across the state are sales.

“We have a really hard cash flow problem right now where we have a lot of money in the tanks, and it’s hard to actually sell the product that’s in the tank,” Zwink said.

Globally, wine consumption has trended down since 2018. In the U.S., volumes fell by 15% between 2019 and 2024. The largest losses were in Florida, New York and California, where many consumers switched to spirits and ready-to-drink beverages, like canned cocktails and hard seltzers.