U.S. retail wine sales fell 5.3% in late October, driven by another drop in still wine

A NielsenIQ retail report released by Wine Industry Advisor on Monday, November 2, showed that U.S. wine sales continued to weaken in late October, with still wine driving most of the decline while sparkling wine returned to slight growth and non-alcoholic wine kept posting strong gains.

In the four weeks ended October 24, total wine sales in the NielsenIQ U.S. retail panel fell 5.3% in volume and 3.8% in dollar sales from the same four-week period in 2025. The measurement excludes wine-based cocktails and reflects tracked retail sales rather than total U.S. wine consumption.

Still wine remained the largest source of pressure on the market. Its sales volume fell 5.8% from a year earlier, while dollar sales declined 4.6%. The figures suggest that the broader market weakness remains concentrated in traditional table wine, which makes up most of the category and has been the main reason for the overall drop in retail wine sales.

Sparkling wine, by contrast, showed a modest improvement. Volume rose 0.1% from the same period a year earlier, and dollar sales increased 1.5%. The change was small, but it marked an improvement from the previous NielsenIQ update, which had shown sparkling wine down 0.3% in volume for the four weeks ended October 17. That shift moved the category back into positive territory, even if only slightly.

Non-alcoholic wine continued to grow at a much faster pace than the rest of the market. In the four weeks ended October 24, its volume climbed 14.6% and its dollar sales rose 18.4% from a year earlier. That kept the category in double-digit growth and set it apart from the broader wine market, where declines remained widespread.

The new report also showed that the market’s year-over-year performance worsened compared with the prior four-week reading. Relative to the report for the four weeks ended October 17, the overall wine market’s annual decline widened by 0.4 percentage points in volume and 0.5 percentage points in dollar sales. That means the latest data showed a weaker comparison with the same period in 2025 even though some shorter-term sales measures improved.

NielsenIQ’s weekly reading pointed to that short-term improvement. In the most recent individual week measured in the report, total wine dollar sales reached $372.5 million, about $3.9 million more than the previous week. That weekly increase, however, did not offset the weaker year-over-year trend for the rolling four-week period.

The comparison between the two four-week reports should be read with caution because the periods are not separate months. The four weeks ended October 24 and the four weeks ended October 17 share three of the same weeks, which means the change between the two reports reflects only one new week entering the rolling window and one older week dropping out. Even so, the update showed that the market’s recent softness was strong enough to deepen the overall decline.

The gap between volume and dollar sales also remained visible across the market. Total dollar sales fell less than total volume, and the same pattern appeared in still wine. That means the amount of wine sold dropped faster than the revenue generated from it, even as consumer demand stayed under pressure.

The report adds to signs that the U.S. wine business remains uneven across segments. Still wine continued to contract at a clear pace, sparkling wine showed only a minimal recovery, and non-alcoholic wine remained the main growth area. Because the figures come from NielsenIQ’s retail panel, they reflect activity at measured retail outlets and not the full national market, but they indicate that the category entered the final stretch of October with weaker year-over-year momentum than in the prior reading.