Panic set in long before this weekend’s kickoff to rosé season in the Hamptons.
“We need to stock up on French and Italian rosé before the tariffs kick in,” said one Hamptonite on a group chat, likening wine from abroad to the most coveted item during the pandemic: “It’s the toilet paper of March 2025,” she said.
Another called Italy direct. “I was worried Italian wine would become prohibitively expensive because of the tariffs,” she said. She called the winemaker at her favorite Italian winery, “before Liberation Day,” (April 2, the day President Donald Trump announced tariffs on imports, including wine) asking if an order would be subject to tariffs. “Then I had to tell them, ‘I hate Trump.’”
Tariffs shouldn’t impact the sale price of existing wine inventory in the Hamptons, but new inventory imported from Europe is subject to a 10% tariff. Initially, it was thought that on July 9, that could increase to 20% if President Trump lifted the current 90-day pause, but on Friday morning, Trump recommended “a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025” in a post on Truth Social.
That means the social set on the South Fork of Long Island might need to stock up now or risk paying more later if the cost of tariffs are passed on to the consumer. For the wine sellers and producers, the uncertainty in the marketplace is already being felt.
“It’s a very nerve-racking time,” says Christopher Miller, a wine consultant who helps run wine education, purchasing, and business development at Park Place Wines and Liquors in East Hampton, “one of the worst I’ve seen in the wine industry.” Worse even, he says, than 2008.
Park Place’s two biggest-selling rosés are from France—Château des Demoiselles, and despite the name, Hampton Water (the blend produced by Jon Bon Jovi and his son Jesse Bongiovi in collaboration with French winemaker Gérard Bertrand). Since the price point for rosé is primarily in the $15–$30 range, Miller says a 10% tariff hit on the price of a bottle, an additional $2 or $3, or a 20% one, an additional $4 or $6, becomes obvious if the price is passed onto the consumer. Customers are already asking what’s going to happen with pricing, and a few are making purchases accordingly, he says.
It’s not just the rosé supply Hamptonites should be worried about. The real problem is with Burgundy and Chablis. Makers of these pricier wines will avoid tariff hassle and just sell elsewhere, says Miller. “The production is too small, and the market is too big, so if we don’t buy in America it’s going to go to other markets easily.”
Rosé is to summer in the Hamptons what hockey is to Canada in the winter. Drinking it is practically the town sport and a significant part of the ecosystem. Nobody is more at the core of that ecosystem than local wine producer Wölffer Estate Vineyard.
“The lifestyle of the Hamptons is so perfect for rosé,” says Wölffer CEO Max Rohn. “The climate, the poolside parties, the daytime drinking.”
Wölffer’s winery and roadside wine stand in Sagaponack are a Hamptons destination. The winery produces 110,000 cases of rosé a year, and the Hamptons is its biggest market.
They mostly make New York state wine, but also produce French wine. Still, wine making, even American wine making, has tariff exposure. “We buy glass that’s made outside the United States and that will be going up,” Rohn says. “We just made a large barrel order, and those prices have gone up.”
Rohn says the tariffs and the economic uncertainty they bring are bad for the wine business.
“We make a handcrafted luxury product, and it takes a lot of planning and growing of the grapes. You have to make decisions months, if not years, in advance.” He says an already tricky business is being made even harder. “We just want this all to go away.”
Jesse Matsuoka, co-owner of the high-end sushi restaurant Sen in Sag Harbor, does as well. His customers drink a lot of rosé in the summer.
“It’s like a broken tap that just keeps pouring,” he says. “It’s impressive how much we go through. But it does end on Labor Day, so we have to make sure we don’t get too much.”
The threat of higher tariffs makes it a balancing act for him to keep enough stock by buying in bulk now to avoid an even steeper increase in July. But that could leave him stuck with inventory in September if he calculates wrong. Not all restaurants can afford to do that, nor do they have space for storage. But if he waits he could end up short. Matsuoka says some vendors are considering waiting out the tariff wars altogether, which could impact supply, leaving restaurants like his high and dry.
“We might not even have [rosé] by July. People would be up in arms.”
To compensate for the fact that some vendors have already increased prices, Sen raised its by-the-glass price of the French-made Whispering Angel from $18 to $20 per glass, but sells a bottle for $64 (which comes out to $16 per glass).
Liz Whittaker, a marketing consultant who focuses on wine, says that tariffs are compounding an already challenging climate for the wine industry. “Everyone who drinks rosé is on Ozempic! People are drinking substantially less.”
She says that’s led to an inventory problem that isn’t tariff-related, and that some mail-order sellers are drastically reducing the price of big-name earlier vintage rosé, like 2022 Miraval and the once impossible-to-get Whispering Angel, to $14.98 and $17.94, respectively, capitalizing on the tariff fears, but selling wine that hasn’t been impacted.
“When you see those calibers of wine, that drastic cut in price, what’s that tell you? That winemakers and distributors have a glut of rosé already and are dumping it.”
In fact, she says, “With all the discounts, it’s actually a really good time to start drinking again.”
This story has been updated.
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