Growth of the
Craft Beverage Industry in the Northeast
Over the past decade, the Northeast has seen a significant boom in the craft beverage industry – from cideries to breweries, and even distilleries producing spirits from farm-grown products. But, we’d be remiss to overlook the pioneers in this “farm-to-bottle” movement — the wine industry. Let’s take a step back in time, to about four decades ago. In the early 1970s, there were hundreds of grape growers throughout the state of New York, but just over a dozen large-scale wineries. The majority of the state’s grapes were sold to a few large wine companies, and as some of those companies were bought by even larger distributors, it put pressure on prices. Additionally, competition from imported wine was increasing. The region’s grape growers were facing crisis. One solution was for the growers to start producing their own wine. However, laws dating back to Prohibition prohibited wineries from selling direct to consumers. These laws required a winery to sell 95% of its production through a distributor or wholesaler. The solution came in the form of the New York Farm Winery Act of 1976. Backed by
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FINANCIAL PARTNER
