French wine imports have slowly gone done in the past couple of years, but a new study conducted by two Stanford economists suggests political reasoning could be at the root. In response to France’s opposition to the war in Iraq, many Americans boycotted French wine which may have cost millions in sales. Weekly sales of French wine dropped around 26% at the peak of the boycott and resulted in a 13% decline for the six month period.
Although experts originally believed the boycott had no real economic effect, these findings prove otherwise. Drawn from supermarket/large retail scanner data focused in Houston, Los Angeles and San Diego, the researchers found that French wine sales dropped during the six months after the war started, possibly losing up to $112 million. Cheap and expensive French wines were hurt the most by the boycott.
