New York Wine Experience 2026: Italian wine faces the tariff test

For three days, a stone’s throw from Times Square, wine will stop being a line in a balance sheet and become a conversation again. From 22 to 24 October the American magazine Wine Spectator brings the forty-fifth edition of its New York Wine Experience to the New York Marriott Marquis, the gathering at which America’s most widely read critics put the producers they have rewarded in the same room as the readers who turn those scores into purchases. This year, for anyone making wine in Italy, that room will also be a thermometer: a chance to gauge how much of America’s love for our bottles survives after a year and a half of tariffs.

A party with forty-five years of history

The Wine Experience was born in 1981, and Wine Spectator itself celebrated the fortieth edition in 2021: the sums add up, and October’s will be number forty-five. The formula has stayed faithful to a simple and somewhat ruthless idea. Across the two evenings of grand tasting, only wines that the magazine’s editors have rated at least 90 points out of 100 are poured: according to the official website, this year there will be more than 260 labels. Each winery brings its own wine and, often, its own producer or winemaker behind the table.

Alongside the walk-around tastings come the seated seminars, where the critics lead verticals and comparisons before an audience of enthusiasts with notebooks open. This is where the format becomes interesting: it is not a trade fair like Vinitaly or ProWein, where orders are signed, but an event for affluent and highly informed consumers, the public that in the United States decides a label’s reputation even before the distributors do. The proceeds support the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation, which funds scholarships in oenology and hospitality: the event’s website speaks of more than 30 million dollars raised over the years.

What to expect from 22 to 24 October

The published programme runs with American precision. Thursday 22 opens with the first evening of grand tasting, the “Critics’ Choice”. Friday 23 will be the busiest day: seminars in the morning, a lunch with food pairings and, in the evening, the second grand tasting. Saturday 24 brings more seminars, another lunch and a Champagne reception to round off the weekend.

The 2025 edition gathered more than 265 wines rated 90 points and above, more than ninety of them over the 95 mark: the average level, in short, is what elsewhere would be reserved for the gala dinner. Reporting on that forty-fourth edition, the magazine summed up the mood with a line that holds for 2026 as well: wine sales in the United States are falling, but passion remains high. It is a contradiction that explains rather well why an event of this kind continues to matter.

Why it matters for Italian producers

The United States is no ordinary market for Italian wine: it is the largest. According to analyses by the Unione Italiana Vini based on Istat data, before the tariffs it was worth around 2 billion euro a year, almost a quarter of the sector’s entire exports. And it is precisely there that the deepest crack has opened. In 2025 Italy’s total exports stalled at around 7.7 billion euro, with a 9.2% year-on-year fall towards the United States, attributed by the UIV to tariffs and a weak dollar. 2026 began worse: in the twelve months between April 2025 and March 2026, again according to the UIV, shipments to the US fell by 17% in value, more than 340 million euro less, with volumes at a ten-year low. In the first four months of 2026 the decline eased, but still stood at around 15%, for roughly 564 million euro.

The tariff picture, meanwhile, has changed more than once. Since the summer of 2025, with the trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, European wine has fallen under the 15% regime. On 20 February 2026 the US Supreme Court struck down the tariffs imposed under emergency powers, and in their place came a provisional 10% levy. At the end of July, according to an analysis by the U.S. Wine Trade Alliance reported in the trade press, the overall burden on European wine remained at around 10%, albeit on a new legal basis. Some sources, it should be said, still refer to the 15% ceiling set out in the agreement with Brussels: the situation is fluid, and exporters know it better than anyone.

Producers’ response has above all been one thing: cutting prices. UIV analyses point to an average export price to the US down by around 9%, a sacrifice of margin so as not to lose shelf space. In this context an event like the Wine Experience becomes valuable for reasons that have nothing to do with tariffs: there, nobody discusses price per litre, they discuss desire. A Barolo, a Brunello or an Amarone that earns a high score and makes itself seen in the right room gains a capital of reputation that no tariff can tax directly.

How to follow it, from New York or from home

Those who will be in Manhattan would do well to choose before going in. With more than 260 wines in a single evening, trying to taste everything is the quickest way to remember nothing. Better to settle on a route: one region, one grape, or a head-to-head comparison, for example the great Tuscan Sangiovese wines alongside the Cabernets of Napa, to understand what the American palate is really looking for. And use the spittoon without shame, as the professionals do.

Those staying in Italy can follow the event through the reports Wine Spectator usually publishes in the days that follow, and in the meantime stage a small Wine Experience in the living room. On the evening of 22 October the idea is to open an Italian red that has built a solid reputation in America: a Brunello di Montalcino, a Barolo, a Chianti Classico Gran Selezione. Or, in keeping with Saturday’s closing reception, a Franciacorta or a Trentodoc metodo classico, which are found on American shelves even less often than they deserve.

Our opinion

The New York Wine Experience will not save Italian exports, and that is not its job. But it is a reminder of something the tariff figures risk making us forget: in the United States Italian wine does not sell only because it is fairly priced, it sells because someone tells its story well. In a year when many wineries have cut their price lists to survive, the temptation will be to treat America as a market to be held at the low end. That would be a mistake. Rooms like the one at the Marriott Marquis say the opposite: the public that counts is willing to spend, provided it finds a reason. It will be up to Italian producers to give it one.

Practical information

• Event: Wine Spectator New York Wine Experience, 45th edition
• Dates: 22, 23 and 24 October 2026 (grand tastings on the evenings of the 22nd and 23rd; seminars on the 23rd and 24th)
• Location: New York Marriott Marquis, 1535 Broadway, New York
• Official website: nywineexperience.com

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