As a wine fan, it’s heartbreaking to read stories like this one from Bloomberg, where winemakers across Europe are seeing their cellars fill up with unsold wine.

Not because of weather. Not because of demand. But because U.S. importers are afraid to place orders—terrified that by the time a bottle reaches the East Coast, it might be slapped with a 200% tariff at the dock.

Wine that should be gracing tables at some of my favorite eateries (eg Four Horsemen, Chambers, and Otherside) is just sitting in Europe's cellars, aging in all the wrong ways.

Here’s the gist: what if winemakers restructured how they sell wine—charging almost nothing for the bottle itself and shifting the rest of the value into separately sold brand licensing and digital experiences? It’s not unprecedented. In fact, it’s how companies like IKEA, Big Tech, and pharma have operated for decades.

And look—I’m a total non-expert in global trade law. But I spend enough time around startup finance, tech, and strategy to notice a pattern. And I can’t help but wonder: can’t winemakers do what Pharma, Big Tech, and even IKEA do?

Those industries have long played with value in ways that are newly relevant to winemakers. Tech companies have perfected the art of this. Apple doesn’t just sell phones—it licenses software, bills separately for cloud storage, and wraps everything in a branded ecosystem that lives largely in the cloud and on the financial books of subsidiaries in low-tax havens like Ireland. The physical devices are just one part of a complex value package.

Pharmaceutical companies do something similar. A pill might be manufactured in one place, but the patent is held in another. A third country houses the team that “markets” it. By the time it reaches your local pharmacy, the value has been divided, sliced, and relocated across jurisdictions in ways that shield profits from taxes or tariffs.

IKEA doesn’t just sell furniture—as far as the tax and tarriff collectors are concerned, it sells access to its brand. Local IKEA stores around the world pay royalty fees to use the name, product names, colors, and store design. Those fees are funneled to a Dutch foundation that holds the intellectual property, dramatically reducing IKEA’s global tax bill. It’s not tax evasion—it’s tax architecture. And it’s perfectly legal. (This short video explains it brilliantly.)

So what does this have to do with wine tariffs? Quite a lot, actually.

The Bottle Is Not the Product

Here’s a heretical idea: maybe wine should be treated more like a service and less like a product.

The U.S. tariffs apply to the physical good—the literal glass bottle filled with fermented grape juice. But the bottle isn’t really what we’re buying when we spring for a \$40 Chablis or a \$65 Barolo. We’re buying story. We’re buying place. We’re buying heritage. We’re buying a sense of artistic mastery, of care, of style—something that happens the before the cork even pops.

What if we restructured the transaction to reflect that?

Imagine this: On a bottle that might ordinarily have wholesaled for \$10, instead a U.S. importer pays just \$2 for the physical bottle of wine—the commodity itself. That \$2 is the only thing declared at the port, and yes, it still gets hit with a 200% tariff, bringing the landed cost to \$6.

But the rest of the value—the brand, the vineyard’s name, the elegant label, the winemaker’s backstory, even the way it’s presented on the shelf—is licensed separately. For that, the importer pays a brand-rights fee to a European IP holding company based in a low-tax country like Ireland or Luxembourg. Then there’s the “cultural experience” bundle: maybe that's access to a beautifully produced short film about the harvest, a guided tasting led by the winemaker, or a virtual tour of the vineyard via AR app. That, too, is technically sold separately—perhaps by a Swiss or Dutch experience-design company affiliated with the winery.

To consumers, it feels like an experience no different than buying a bottle today. But to customs officers, it’s just a really cheap bottle of wine.

Rethinking the Numbers: A Tale of Two Bottles

Let’s ground this in something real.

Say a French vineyard sells a bottle of wine—let’s call it Domaine Matzner 2022—to a U.S. importer for \$10. That importer marks it up, adds shipping and customs fees, sells it to a distributor, who then sells it to a wine shop. The final retail price? Somewhere around \$22–\$25.

Now imagine that same bottle in 2025, with a 200% tariff slapped on the \$10 wholesale price. That’s an additional \$20 in duties before shipping, distribution, or markup. Suddenly, that \$25 bottle is pushing \$40 on the shelf. The importer passes. The distributor shrugs. The bottle stays in the cellar in Burgundy.

But now consider an alternative.

Suppose Domaine Matzner instead sells that same bottle for \$2 to the U.S. importer—just the physical good, stripped of brand rights and marketing assets. The 200% tariff now applies only to that \$2, adding \$4 in duties. The importer pays \$6 total for the landed cost of the juice and glass.

Separately, the importer licenses the Domaine Beaujour name, label, and story from a European IP holding company. Maybe that costs them \$5 per bottle. They also pay a digital content arm—perhaps based in Switzerland or the Netherlands—an additional \$3 for a “tasting experience bundle” that includes a short film about the vineyard, an AR-powered vineyard walkthrough, and access to a guided tasting video.

All in, the importer’s cost is \$14—but now the tariff hit is minimal. Better yet, that \$14 is split in ways that are more controllable, more brand-driven, more margin-rich, and more tax effieicne for the vineyard and its partners.

And for the consumer? The bottle might still be \$25 at retail—but it now includes storytelling, interactivity, and digital membership perks. Instead of just a drink, it feels like a curated, intentional experience. More like buying a bottle and joining a club.

This isn’t financial sleight of hand. It’s a reframing of where value truly resides—and a way to avoid being punished for the very thing that makes these wines so compelling: their identity.

A Platform, Not a Product

If this sounds like a legal loophole, it’s not. It’s a creative reframing of how value travels across borders. And in doing so, it opens up a much larger opportunity for European winemakers: the chance to evolve from artisanal commodity producers into owners of luxury brand ecosystems.

Because the truth is, wine has always been an experience business. The most successful labels in the world—whether it’s a Burgundy grand cru or a \$25 bottle with great shelf presence—aren’t selling wine. They’re selling identity. Taste. Connection. They are in the business of cultural capital.

So why not make that official? Why not turn wine into a platform?

Under this model, maybe each bottle becomes a kind of membership key—a ticket into the story of the vineyard. Scan a QR code and you’re taken into a world of short films, winemaker interviews, guided tastings, maybe even a seasonal newsletter or access to limited drops. The wine becomes part of a broader subscription to meaning. Sure, maybe it's a little cheesy. But it also pulls wine into the 21st century and even helps producers connect more directly with consumers.

Besides, winemakers wouldn’t be the first to do this. Dozens of DTC coffee and spirits brands are already doing something similar. So are luxury fashion houses. The only difference is they’re not facing a 200% tariff on their core good.

The Real Challenge

Of course, restructuring a wine business around licensing and experiences isn’t simple. It requires coordination. It requires legal advice. It requires buy-in from importers, distributors, and probably a whole new kind of marketing budget. Though, it wouldn't be too complex to build a software platform to handle all this.

It also requires courage. Most wineries aren’t built like Apple or Pfizer. They’re family-run operations with generations of tradition behind them. But the market is shifting. Tariffs aren’t the only threat—global consolidation, shifting tastes, and climate volatility are already pushing wineries to think differently about survival.

This model offers a way not just to survive, but to reinvent.

Because maybe—just maybe—if you treat the wine not as the product but as the entry point, you can unlock a business that’s not only tariff-resistant, but far more powerful, scalable, and future-proof than before.

Final Sip

It might sound far-fetched. It might sound absurd. But if IKEA can turn particle board into an international licensing operation, and Big Tech can shift billions of dollars through services and ecosystems, maybe it’s time we gave wine the same creative treatment.

The grapes are crushed, and so is the old way of doing things. Maybe it's time for a new label.

Disclaimer
The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, tax, or accounting advice. The content presented herein should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with a qualified professional in these fields. Neither the author nor Fueled make any representations as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of the information contained in this article for any particular purpose. Readers are advised to seek the counsel of legal, tax, or financial professionals before taking any actions based on the concepts discussed herein.