(Forbes) - According to the latest Wine Vines Analytics/Nielsen stats, from March 2018-March 2019 American consumers spent $14.4 billion on wine through, “grocery, drug, mass merchandisers, convenience, dollar, military, as well as a selection of warehouse clubs, and liquor channel geographies and liquor channel retail chains.” 

That’s a 1.6% dollar increase over the same period between 2017-2018. But the overall volume of wine—162 million cases—for the 52-weeks represented a 1% drop from the same 52 week period between 2017-2018.

A dollar increase in wine sales at retail coupled with lower case volume likely reflects price increases. Whether or not that is a good thing depends on how much inventory build up it creates over time, and what wineries have to do to move that inventory.