Canadian Wineries Featured in Expanded 2025 BMO Wine Market Report

Wine Growers Canada — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Wine Growers Canada (WGC) was delighted to collaborate with BMO on the 2025 BMO Wine Market Report, a landmark publication that significantly expands its scope to include a comprehensive survey of Canadian wineries.

This augmented North American perspective provides invaluable market data and consumer insights, offering a more complete picture of the challenges and opportunities facing the wine industry across the continent. The 2025 BMO Wine Market Report, the second edition of this important document, highlights an industry grappling with a complex mix of optimism and increasing challenges.

Despite a challenging 2024, vintners entered 2025 with optimism, which appears to have been well-founded in some areas, but met with new, daunting hurdles in others. Political and economic instability, along with excess inventory from the pandemic surge, have made business management difficult. A disappointing Q4 2024 revealed deeper consumer demand challenges than anticipated. The shock of U.S. tariffs and retaliatory measures imposed in early 2025, particularly impacting the Canadian market for U.S. wine exports, adds another layer of complexity.

However, the report also offers glimmers of hope, noting that the total U.S. wine market value grew four per cent in 2024, and many North American wineries experienced double-digit sales growth through expanded direct sales and distribution. The inclusion of data on Canadian wineries, with a total wine market volume of 53 million cases in 2024, is a significant addition. The report suggests that a restructuring of global trade, though painful, might ultimately help improve the flow of Canadian wine across provincial borders as wineries increasingly focus on direct sales.

Key findings from the 2025 BMO Wine Market Report include:

Growth in direct sales: Nearly 40 per cent of U.S. wineries and over 40 per cent of Canadian wineries reported increased sales in 2024, with a significant portion of this growth attributed to direct sales channels.
Moderation in drinking habits: New data indicates a decrease in overall drinking since the pandemic, driven by heightened health concerns about alcohol and a general desire to improve health. Younger drinkers are also more inclined to participate in abstention events like Dry January.
Core consumer habits: Most regular wine drinkers continue to enjoy wine at least once a week, typically purchasing a bottle around $15 weekly and more expensive bottles monthly.
Investment in direct channels: Over half of the surveyed wineries plan to further invest in their tasting rooms and wine clubs, recognizing these as primary methods for increasing revenue this year through direct sales.
Emergence of Gen Z: Gen Z drinkers (ages 21 to 27) accounted for a larger share of the average U.S. winery wine club in 2024 compared to the previous year, indicating a growing engagement from this demographic.
Grape market correction: The wine grape market is long in most major West Coast regions, leading growers to remove thousands of acres in a necessary, albeit painful, correction.
Top priorities and concerns: Increasing sales remains the top priority for all North American wineries, with the economy being their foremost concern.
Shifting consumer landscape: While wine has historically relied on the Boomer generation, sales to this demographic are slowing. Gen X has not embraced wine as much, Millennials have faced economic challenges and younger generations are increasingly fragmented in their interests. These younger consumers are also drinking considerably less when they reach legal drinking age, and the pandemic curtailed their opportunities for wine discovery.
Embracing new strategies: The report emphasizes the need for the wine industry to abandon outdated perspectives formed during three decades of sustained growth. New thinking and technology in wine production, selling and marketing are crucial. Direct sales, in particular, offer a measure of control and predictability in an uncertain market, but success will require a heightened sense of competition and proactive engagement with consumers.

WGC commends BMO for this expanded and insightful report and is committed to increasing the number of Canadian wineries participating in the 2026 and future BMO Wine Market Reports to ensure even more robust and representative data for the industry. This ongoing collaboration will be vital in supporting Canadian wine producers as they adapt to evolving market dynamics and consumer preferences.

Read the full report at www2.bmocm.com/2025-wine-report.

Wine Market Report – Poured Canada

Canadian Wineries Featured in Expanded 2025 BMO Wine Market Report