(Wines&Vines) - U.S. consumers continue to pull more wine off retail shelves as wineries sell more bottles direct to consumers and hire more workers.

Based on the latest numbers in the Wines Vines Analytics Wine Industry Metrics report for September, the wine industry is doing quite well as all key metrics remained positive.

Off-premise sales in channels tracked by the Chicago, Ill.-based market-research firm IRI grew to $8.2 billion during the past 12 months and totaled $624 million in September. Sales last month were 8% more than September 2014, and the 12-month total was 6% higher.

DtC sales rose 4% over September 2014, and the 12-month total increased 12% to $1.9 billion. In terms of volume, wineries direct-shipped 367,875 cases in September and more than 4.2 million cases in the past 12 months.

The Winery Job Index created by Winejobs.com increased 16% in September. The index has gone up every month since November 2014. Postings for sales and marketing positions saw the biggest increase in September since 2011. The sales and marketing subcategory shot up 70% over September 2014, although that month was particularly weak for jobs in this category.

Breaking out the bubbly
Wines & Vines looked more closely at sparkling wine sales in the IRI and DtC data. In the off-premise channel, domestic bubbly still has a greater market share than imported bubbly (52% compared to 48%), but that gap has narrowed since a year ago, when it was 54% domestic and 46% imported.

Both types of sparkling wine are growing in sales, but the rate of increase is much stronger for imports, which leaped by 16% during the most recent 52 weeks. The price segments leading the growth in imports are $13-$17.99 (up by 52% in 52 weeks), and $8-$12.99 (up 15%).

Domestic sparkling saw its biggest dollar gains in the $8-$12.99 range (up 9%) and $13-$17.99 (up 15%). The lowest and highest priced segments had even faster growth rates, but from much smaller bases. Domestic brut and rosé sparkling wines both grew by 11% in value, while sales of spumante and demi-sec styles retreated. Overall, domestic sparkling sales increased by 9%.

Italian sparkling wines increased the most in value by country, growing 21% compared to 9% for France and 6% for Spain. Italian Prosecco alone rose 44% in value to now control 14% of the sparkling category, according to IRI.

The DtC sparkling wine pie was worth $39 million during the most recent 12 months, which represented a 2% increase from the previous 12 months. Napa wineries had a 53% share of the market by value for domestic sparkling wines shipped direct to consumer.

Domestic sparkling wines priced $20-$29.99 had the largest sales total in the DtC shipment channel. However, this segment dropped from the previous 12 months.

Flash offers nearly double
The number of flash offers in September nearly doubled from the previous year after leading flash reseller Invino held a special Labor Day promotion that resulted in hundreds of offers. Invino posted 290 offers and the website accounted for 41% of the 699 total offers by all websites in September.

Flash websites offer a few wines for sale at steep discounts for a limited amount of time.