Oregon wine sales suffered delayed losses after the 2020 wildfire smoke

Immediate and delayed damage

The study, published on October 15 in the Journal of Wine Economics, was conducted by Oregon State University applied economics researchers Amod Sugiyama and James Sterns. It assessed whether smoke from the September 2020 Labor Day fires produced measurable losses for Oregon wineries. The researchers found both an immediate reduction in tasting-room activity and a longer-lasting decline in retail volumes among wineries assigned heavier smoke exposure.¹

The results suggest that estimates confined to the harvest period or the first months after a wildfire can miss a substantial part of its economic impact. The authors said this matters to producers, insurers, lenders and investors making decisions about coverage, financing and business planning throughout the beverage sector.¹

Data and short-term tasting-room effects

The researchers combined satellite-derived air-quality measurements with commercial sales records. They compared September 2020 smoke exposure with retail sales from 171 Oregon wineries between 2018 and 2024, used a separate monthly dataset for 158 tasting rooms to examine visits and direct sales, and grouped 850 wineries by production size to investigate whether scale offered protection from losses.¹

Survey evidence cited in the paper showed that more than 60% of Oregon wineries reported being directly affected by smoke, including 76% in the Willamette Valley. The authors said these figures illustrated the disruption’s reach but could not distinguish smoke effects from other market forces, including the wider upheaval of 2020.¹

In the month after exposure, each ZIP code-level increase in smokiness was associated with declines of 5.8% in both tasting-room visits and sales. Other direct-to-consumer channels fell by 2.7%, possibly because online and telephone orders were less dependent on local air quality than in-person visits.¹

Retail losses peaked in 2023

For the retail analysis, a one-standard-deviation increase in smoke exposure corresponded to approximately 11.6 micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air during September 2020. Wineries at that higher exposure level sold about 15% less wine by volume in 2021, 20% less in 2022 and 23% less in 2023 than the 2019 baseline. The estimated gap narrowed to about 19% in 2024.¹

The authors said the timing was consistent with the wine trade’s release cycle: bottles from the 2020 harvest became more visible at retail two or three years after the fires, and the largest estimated loss occurred in 2023, when those wines were especially prominent on shelves. However, the retail records did not specify the vintage of each bottle, so this connection rests on timing rather than bottle-level identification.¹

The statistical support was strongest for the 2023 result. Estimates for 2021 and 2022 satisfied a less demanding standard but did not meet the threshold for significance most commonly used in research. The clearest evidence therefore concerns delayed harm in 2023, even though the estimates indicate a multiyear pattern.¹

Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir bore most of the decline

Pinot Gris experienced the largest and most persistent reduction: retail volume was about 24% below the baseline in 2021 and 37% to 38% lower in every year from 2022 through 2024. Pinot Noir, representing about 49% of sample retail sales, declined by roughly 21% to 25% through 2023, although its statistical evidence was weaker than Pinot Gris’s. Together, the two varieties accounted for 75% of studied retail volume and most of the overall loss.¹

No significant effects were detected for rosé, red blends or other white wines. The authors proposed that consumers may associate Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir more closely with Oregon’s identity, potentially making them more exposed to reputational damage after a smoke event. Chardonnay was excluded because its sales had already followed a different trajectory before the fires, preventing a clear separation of smoke effects from the earlier trend.¹

Price movements were less uniform than volume changes. The price of Pinot Gris fell by about 3% while its volume declined, whereas Pinot Noir prices increased by about 3% despite lower sales volumes. The paper discussed possible reasons for the Pinot Noir increase but did not establish one cause.¹

Winery size and study limitations

To test whether resources, equipment or access to smoke testing protected larger businesses, the researchers classified wineries as small when they produced fewer than 5,000 cases annually, medium at 5,000 to 10,000 cases, and large above 10,000 cases. They found no statistically meaningful variation in the smoke effect among the groups, indicating that greater scale did not insulate producers from the retail consequences.¹

The authors identified several limitations. Exposure was based on each winery’s registered business address rather than vineyard locations, potentially obscuring actual conditions and understating the effect. The tasting-room figures covered the anonymized clients of one company rather than the whole industry, and the retail records lacked bottle-level vintage information. The study also did not quantify possible damage to the collective reputation of Oregon wine, which could create losses beyond those visible in individual wineries’ sales.¹