Everything he took was a threat on the social media All-Caps of President Trump to impose a 200 % rate on European wine for shipments by many Brunellos, Chiantis and Principal to stop.
In Tuscany, the most famous wine region in Italy, thousands of bottles intended for American tables are blocked in the Cole of the cellars or in the warehouses of Livorno, the port city from which they had to start.
“Everything is stopped,” said Tiziana Mazzetti, manager of the sales and marketing of the old cellar, a cellar in the Tuscan city of Montepulciano, while it was between boxes of bottles of wine that they should have left this month for the United States. “The damage is already here.”
So far, the threat of Mr. Trump remains precisely this. But it was enough for the nervous American importers to pause the orders rather than potentially pay the rates that could make the wine inaccessible for some and it is not worth it for others. If the rates were to be imposed – and transmit to consumers in full – a $ 20 bottle would suddenly cost $ 60.
Together with France and Spain, Italy is among the most exposed rates in Europe at the American rates on wine and many claim that a 200 % rate would be devastating. For almost 15 years, the United States have been the largest Italian export market for wines. About a quarter of Italian wine exports, or about $ 2 billion, are sent to America every year.
Through the sweet hills of Tuscany, with its olive trees and country roads lined with cypresses, that relationship seems particularly narrow.
For decades, the importers of wine that speak Italian because of the Tuscan, with American accent they poured into Tuscany, taking up the bottles of his famous Chiantis and Brunellos at the tables of American houses and restaurants. Lovers of American wine arrive in droves in the region – second only in Veneto for its exports of wine – and the Tuscan donkeys publish signs that said “USA+Europe Free Shipping”.
Maybe not for much more time.
Giancarlo Pacenti, whose cellar is located on the slopes of the medieval city of Montalcino, sat down next to the prizes he received from the magazines of American wine for his Brunellos while describing his fears for the future.
Pacenti, who inherited his father’s cellar, visit the United States several times a year. He exported his wine-and Sangiovese Uva base and aged in French oak barrels-the Atlantic has been attempted since the mid-90s. A strong American question has contributed to growing his business, he said, and now he sells almost 40 percent of his wine to importers in the United States.
But now the importers are telling him to pause further shipments.
“A pillar is crumbling,” he said. “We would never have expected that we would find a closed door where we always had absolute freedom.”
Some producers have said that the threat of the rates added to other recent troubles, including the rise of wines, beers and non -alcoholic spirits.
On the other side of the ocean, the importers said that the uncertainty caused by the growing global commercial war was forcing them to take a break while shipments, which travel by sea, could reach customs after the entry into force of the rates.
“The rates could be 200 percent,” said Brian Larky, an American importer of the wines of Mr. Pacenti, who is based in Napa Valley, California. “It’s enough to stop in your tracks.”
The importers, who are responsible for paying the rates, could pass the costs to customers, but without doubt would reduce sales. They could also absorb the cost of rates, delete their profits or ask producers to have some burden, hitting their earnings. But with a 200 %rate, “we would all end up without work,” said Mrs. Mazzetti, from the Montepulciano cellar.
Trump has announced his intention to impose overwhelming rates on European wine and champagne on social truth on March 13th. It was part of a tit-per-tat commercial struggle with the European Union that started with a lot of rates imposed by Trump. The block replied with what Mr. Trump called a “bad” rate of 50 % on American whiskey, which led him to issue his threat against “all wines, champagne and alcoholic products that came out of France and other countries represented in the EU” if the whiskey rate was not removed.
Since then the European Union has declared that they would delay that rate to give officials more time to conclude an agreement with the Trump administration.
Trump said that rates on European alcohol products “will be perfect for wine and champagne activities in the United States”, but may not be so simple. For most US wines producers, sales rely on small businesses – distributors, retailers and restaurateurs – which also depend in part on the sales of European wines.
“Those Italian wines are needed in Italian restaurants,” Larky said, which matters almost five million bottles of Italian wine in the United States every year. “People will not replace the wines from La Loira, from Chablis or from Tuscany – a Brunello or Barolo – with a little wine from Chile.”
While walking around Montalcino last week, which overlooks a valley of vineyards, some American tourists agree.
“It would be a huge loss,” said Dave Whitmer, 74 years old, a retired doctor from Sonoma, California, who claims to prefigure Italian and French wines in our local variety. “I grew up drinking American wine,” he said. “But I grew up.”
Other American tourists said they had ordered hundreds of bottles of wine from local cellars during their holidays to stock up before any rate came into force.
“I told them to send them immediately,” said Jennifer Mangusson, 48 years old, from the Aidaho.
While some producers had initially hurried to stack American warehouses with bottles before the rates came into force, they say that the window has mostly closed.
“Our greatest customers have already sent letters to Italian producers telling them to get out of their way,” said Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of the Italian wine union, the largest wine association in the country. “With this uncertainty, we cannot afford to bottle and send.”
The Bourgogne Wine Board, a commercial association that promotes Bordeaux wines in France, and the Spanish Wine Association has also claimed to have seen a similar trend, with importers who await some shipments.
Ben Grossberg, who matters Portuguese wine in the United States, said he canceled his latest container 15 minutes before he walked away from the warehouse in Portugal. “The risk of putting wine in the water is too big,” he said.
Some importers with greater risk tolerance have still placed orders, but Mr. Frescobaldi said that if the rates actually came into force, “it would be a fatal blow” for the industry.
“The American market,” he said, “is irreplaceable”.
Tuscans still expressed the hope that the European Union could somehow convince Mr. Trump to retire. But even if the commercial battle cools down, many in Tuscany and elsewhere fear that at least a part of the losses inflicted in the midst of uncertainty cannot be canceled.
Laura Mayr, general manager of the Cantina di Ruggeri, who produces Prosecco in Northern Italy, said that at this time of the year, she and her staff usually organized promotional activities and tastings for American importers. But they had stopped.
“The damage is already done,” said Mrs. Mayr. “We wasted time in a critical moment.”
Roser Pifarré Reports contributed by Barcelona.