US Buyers Still Dominate Fine Wine Markets But Their Strategy Has Changed

US buyers have become the fine wine market’s center of gravity in ways that weren’t true even five years ago, and their behavior now determines whether prices rise or fall across entire regions.

Liv-ex’s data from 2024 showed that US merchants accounted for 35.5% of all purchases on the exchange for the year, jumping to an even higher 42.6% in December alone. That marked the first year US buyers captured the “lion’s share” of activity, cementing their role as the market’s most influential constituency.

That dominance became painfully clear in 2025 when the Trump administration threatened tariffs of up to 200% on European wine, Champagne, and spirits. US buyers pulled back sharply from the secondary market in response, and the impact rippled globally.

Purchase share of top Piedmont wines by US buyers halved from 44% in Q1 2025 to just 22% in Q2, helping push prices lower across an already fragile market.

By mid-November 2025, Liv-ex stated bluntly that “US buyers’ departure following tariff threats resulted in accelerated declines” and raised questions about whether a market that had “quietly come to rely on them” could recover without their full participation.

Yet the picture isn’t simple withdrawal and collapse. Since tariffs on EU wine and spirits were definitively set at 15% from August 2025, up from 10% previously but far below the threatened 30% to 200% scenarios, US merchants began buying again. This “cautious return” lifted trade volumes back to roughly 2018 levels, even though activity remains well below the highs of 2024.

How Tariff Uncertainty Changed US Wine Buying Behavior Forever

When the new US-EU trade framework was finally announced in summer 2025, it confirmed a 15% tariff on EU wine and spirits from August 1st, replacing the previous 10% rate. French group Rémy Cointreau calculated that this 15% rate, down from an initially proposed 30%, would cut the tariff hit to its operating profit in the US from €35 million to €20 million in fiscal 2025-26.

The European wine lobby warned nonetheless that even the 15% tariff was already “damaging the sector” and depressing export volumes, reinforcing pressure on margins along the supply chain.

For US secondary market buyers, the bigger problem was the months of uncertainty that preceded the 15% settlement. Liv-ex summarized it starkly: tariff uncertainty prevented US actors from planning their buying strategies, and this uncertainty proved more damaging than the tariffs themselves.

During the height of the threats, US participation in certain segments collapsed. Piedmont’s top wines again became a clear case, where the US share of purchasing dropped from 44% to 22% in just one quarter, demonstrating how quickly American buyers could evacuate entire categories when policy became unpredictable.

Once the dust settled around the 15% rate, the shape of US buying had fundamentally changed from what it looked like before the crisis.

The return of US buyers lifted trade volumes back to roughly 2018 levels, but as Liv-ex’s November 2025 report stated clearly, “a return to 2024 levels in the near future remains highly unlikely.” US merchants are deliberately taking less stock per purchase, maintaining lean inventories and faster rotation, but buying with more confidence now that the tariff rate is known and they can model costs accurately.

To understand why this behavioral shift matters, you need to look back at the first major tariff shock in October 2019. Back then, the US imposed 25% tariffs on a range of European goods, including many still wines, as part of the Airbus-Boeing dispute. The data showed how dramatically US buying patterns shifted in response.

Bordeaux’s share of US trade by value fell from 48% before the tariffs to 33% afterward. Burgundy’s share dropped from 13% to 8%. Meanwhile, Champagne’s share rose from 10% to 14%, Italy’s climbed from 18% to 25%, and “Rest of World” increased from 4% to 10%.

The 2025 tariff round had a different, more nuanced effect that showed how much more sophisticated US buying had become.

This time Champagne and Californian wine saw the most pronounced hit to their share of US buying during the tariff scare, but both recovered to their pre-tariff share levels much faster than in 2019. This suggested much quicker rebalancing and more tactical portfolio management by US merchants who’d learned from the previous cycle.

The shocks of 2019 and 2025 haven’t simply reduced volumes but permanently reshaped how and where US capital gets deployed in the fine wine market.

What US Buyers Are Purchasing Now and Why It Matters

Today’s US purchasing patterns look far more diversified than the Bordeaux-dominated mix of the late 2010s. Liv-ex compared US behavior with the UK, noting that both have broadened beyond a narrow focus on Bordeaux and Burgundy, but the US pivot was catalyzed by tariffs rather than purely by changing tastes.

Champagne has been the biggest winner from this structural reallocation. The long-term data shows Champagne’s share of overall exchange trade by value rising from roughly 1.2% in 2010 to about 8.2% by 2021. During that period, US buyers accounted for 47% of Champagne purchases by value, underlining how central America became to the category’s liquidity. Performance tracked that demand closely.

In 2020, the Champagne 50 was the single strongest-performing sub-index in the Liv-ex 1000, up 8.27% when most other regions were flat or negative.

Even after the subsequent market correction that hit all categories, recent data showed stabilization in Champagne that suggested the category’s elevated role wasn’t just momentum. An August 2025 trading update noted that Champagne’s main index ticked up 0.7% month-over-month, supported by over £2 million in live bids and a marked improvement in the overall bid-to-offer ratio on the exchange.

The 2025 tariffs did temporarily dent Champagne’s share of traded value, but Liv-ex reported that its share of US buying recovered to pre-tariff levels, confirming that the category’s place in US portfolios was structural rather than tactical.

Italy has moved from being a diversification play to a core allocation for many US buyers in ways that mirror Champagne’s trajectory. Liv-ex attributed Italy’s growth partly to its exemption from the 2019-2021 US tariffs, which helped push its share of total Liv-ex trade from 8.8% in 2019 to 15.1% in 2020 and 15.4% in 2021. That share remained structurally higher even as market conditions normalized in subsequent years.

Recent data confirmed Italy’s continued strength. A November 2025 report noted that in October 2025, Italian wines accounted for 19.4% of all Liv-ex trade by value, the highest share since August 2020.

The Italy 100 index also led all major regional indices that month with a 1.3% gain, helped by steady demand for names like Masseto and Ornellaia. For US buyers, the story is that Barolo, Brunello, and the top Super Tuscans have moved from “interesting add-ons” to strategic building blocks, partly for tariff reasons but also because their risk-return profile looks attractive compared with overpriced young Bordeaux.

Perhaps the most counterintuitive finding is California’s strength in US portfolios during a time of higher tariffs on imported wine. Intuitively, tariffs should bias consumption toward domestic product, but Liv-ex pointed out that dollar strength has actually allowed US buyers to purchase Californian wines from international markets at a discount, exploiting price discrepancies between US and overseas listings.

In practice, this means some US merchants are buying back iconic Californian labels that were previously exported, often at lower all-in costs than sourcing the same wines domestically.

What to Expect From US Wine Buyers in the Coming Years

The near-term outlook for US demand is best described as gradually expanding but structurally leaner than the peak years. Liv-ex’s report stated plainly that the “cautious return of buyers has brought trade volumes back up to 2018 levels,” and that as existing stocks get run down, “purchased volumes are expected to increase.”

At the same time, it stressed that a return to 2024 volumes in the near future is “highly unlikely,” suggesting the market needs to adjust expectations about what normal looks like.

Recent monthly data backs up this gradual recovery thesis. An August 2025 update showed that overall trade volume on Liv-ex was up 3.8% versus July and 10% year-over-year, even though trade value remained about 9.7% lower than August 2024.

That’s a classic sign of more activity happening at lower prices, which typically precedes broader recovery as buyers gain confidence and sellers accept new pricing reality. September figures showed the Liv-ex 100 index rising 1.17%, its best monthly gain since October 2022, as tariffs settled at 15% and US buyers began to “gradually” return to the market..

The picture that emerges is clear: volumes will likely grind higher from today’s 2018-style levels as merchants restock and exploit pockets of value that the correction created. Portfolios will stay structurally more diversified than they were before 2019, with Champagne, Italy, and select California labels entrenched alongside blue-chip Bordeaux and Burgundy rather than as temporary alternatives. And US buyers’ margin sensitivity combined with their tactical agility, rather than sheer volume alone, will keep them at the center of global fine wine price discovery.

The market has fundamentally adjusted to a reality where American buying patterns matter more than any other single factor, and that dependence isn’t reversing even as volumes normalize at levels below the 2024 peak.