Leading premium-plus wine players drive U.S. growth

Benefiting from robust premiumisation trends, the U.S. market’s leading wine brands priced at $10-and-above are posting solid growth and outperforming the overall category. The total domestic and imported premium-plus wine segments each rose roughly 4% in 2014, and the top 15 domestic players were up 5.7%, to around 27 million nine-litre cases, according to Impact Databank. Growth was even more pronounced for the market’s top five premium-plus imports, which collectively rose 11.2% to 4.3 million cases last year.