(NBBJ) - Barack Obama’s success in the recent presidential election in the U.S. highlights the potential rewards for politicians who can successfully engage the Hispanic population, and this experience holds important lessons for the U.S. wine industry.

Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority in the U.S., but they drink less wine per capita than the average American. So it should not be a surprise that if the wine industry were to successfully target the market and influence Hispanics to increase their consumption, huge rewards would be in-store.

By Rabobank estimates, if the wine industry were able to bring Hispanic wine consumption up to the level of the typical consumer, annual wine consumption among Hispanics will increase by nearly 50 million cases over the next 20 years! That could be as much as 40 percent of the total growth in U.S. wine consumption over that period.

Successfully engaging the Hispanic market offers important potential growth opportunities, but failure to engage this demographic risks losing this future growth to the beer segment, which has been aggressively targeting this market.