The global wine industry is facing its most significant disruption in decades. Consumption has declined since 2018, vineyard yields are down, and consumer habits have shifted toward spirits, seltzers, and cannabis-based alternatives. (Source: Eric Asimov, New York Times, Oct 14 2025) Meanwhile, costs continue to rise. Labor, glass, freight, and compliance add expense at every stage of the value chain, while tariffs and climate volatility erode margins. For small producers — the cultural backbone of the industry — survival now depends on efficiency, transparency, and direct engagement with consumers. Market Overview Global wine sales peaked near $360 billion in 2018. Since then, total volume has fallen roughly 10%, with the steepest drop in entry-level wines. Premium segments have fared better, reflecting a long-term 'drink-less-but-better' trend. Within the U.S., per-capita wine consumption has retreated to pre-2015 levels even as total beverage-alcohol spending gr

The Wine Enthusiast 2025 report, “As Wine Production Plummets in California, Small Producers Seize the Moment” (https://bit.ly/44bcfAC), captures a truth the industry has felt for several seasons: California’s production environment has shifted from abundance to constraint. Lower yields, more variable conditions, and rising operating costs have altered the familiar supply landscape. But the most interesting development isn’t the decline itself — it’s the redistribution of opportunity. As the article notes, independent wineries are not simply surviving the contraction. They are stepping into the foreground, leveraging their flexibility, proximity to the consumer, and their ability to act without the institutional drag that can encumber larger producers. This is the story of a sector rebalancing around agility rather than acreage. Operational Discipline as a Growth Strategy Independent wineries are discovering that growth in this new era has less to do

FORT’s original focus was the wine industry, and managing wine shipments remains core to our business. The system was built from the ground up to solve problems facing key areas of the industry, such as shipping, compliance, and seamless data transfer. Each module and detail were forged by the actual issues wineries face every day. A crucial problem plaguing wineries and other beverage alcohol companies is the use of multiple systems to manage the order cycle: POS, club, ecommerce, compliance, customer notifications, data analytics, fulfillment, etc.  Companies also find that tracking multiple inventories (deep storage, club, tasting room, daily orders) can be very challenging. FORT provides a single, integrated system to manage all aspects of shipping wine: Plug and play with 3rd party systems POS and order management integration Integration with fulfillers (3PLs) and major carriers Fully integrated data analytics and compliance solutions What Sets FORT's Wine Ship

Don’t just send labeled boxes out the door and call it a shipping process. So many things happen behind the scenes. This guide breaks down the six stages and ten actionable strategies to optimize your process and exceed customer expectations. Most ecommerce interactions with customers happen online—browsing, clicking, and interacting via email or chat. But the minute they place an order, your brand becomes more tangible, more real to them. It’s like your online identity packs a suitcase, along with their order, and steps into the real world, ready to meet them face-to-face. Countless stages, from product inception to clever marketing, have brought you to this critical moment. Need expert help selecting the right tool? With one-on-one help, we guide you to your top software options. Narrow down your software search & make a confident choice. And you get one clear shot to deliver (pun intended). So in this blog post, we’ll focus on the final phas

Faced with rising material costs and downward price pressure in the market, businesses naturally look to streamline operations to the greatest extent possible, and to extract every last bit of value from their existing resources. For wineries, one manifestation of this effort is the tendency to keep as many aspects of the business in-house as they can, avoiding fees to third-party providers. This is a laudable and occasionally successful strategy, but does it work for fulfillment? There are many complexities and hidden costs in fulfillment, some of which may be unknown to wineries at the time they consider whether to outsource their fulfillment operation. Cost burdens such as direct labor, packing materials, inventory management, and various operating expenses are all associated with keeping work in house. Time-consuming administrative, scheduling, logistics, and other support activities can drain precious resources as well, though may add little or no value. This short white paper con

Please stop by our booth for a chat and a brief demo should you wish to see FORT in more detail.  We’re in Ballroom A in a corner booth, #A2410. Taking too long to pack and ship your daily orders?  Getting too many returned packages with no clear way to improve successful delivery percentages?   We’d love to learn more about your business, and discuss with you how more efficient shipping management and data analytics tools might help improve your bottom line.   We look forward to seeing you there! Fort Systems Unified Symposium Booth: A2410 FORT is a software platform focused on shipping and fulfillment for the wine industry, and offers solutions for the various accessibility and logistical problems that can come between suppliers and buyers.  While we first encountered many of these issues in the wine industry, the solutions we’ve developed are not limited to alcoholic beverages, and can help make shipping easier to manage for any company. Wi

WSC, the premier wine industry fulfillment and logistics company, has selected the FORT technology platform to help ensure continued growth and leadership. ST. HELENA, CA, UNITED STATES, November 25, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Wine Service Cooperative (WSC), the wine industry’s long-established, premier provider of specialized wine storage and shipping solutions, today announced a multi-year partnership with FORT Systems, a leader in logistics software solutions for the wine industry. As WSC continues to expand its operational footprint in the US, this best-in-class partnership is designed to further improve the efficiency, accuracy, and reliability of wine fulfillment operations, setting a new industry standard for professionalism and customer satisfaction. By leveraging FORT’s state-of-the-art software platform, WSC will optimize its supply chain operations with advanced features such as real-time inventory tracking, predictive analytics, and seamless integrations and o

By Nick Thomas October 3, 2024 9:54 pm (Washington Examiner) Wine consumption globally is continuing its downward trend, and some winemakers and other industry players are failing to see what could be an existential crisis for the nectar of the gods.  Wine has been facing a long-term structural decline for some time. Major wine markets such as France and Italy have indeed been in such decline for decades while the United States, the world’s most valuable market for wine, appears to be in a downward cycle, according to industry body IWSR.  The reasons for such decline are multiple, including a trend toward drinking moderation. But one key area is the apparent di culty of attracting younger generations to wine. “The wine category is becoming increasingly reliant on older drinkers, thanks to a number of factors, including aging populations in regions such as Europe, and a challenge recruiting younger LDA (legal drinking age) consumers in certain markets,” accor

Wineries Can Automatically Safeguard Shipments and Deliver with Confidence FORT Systems, the leading fulfillment and shipping software platform for the wine industry, today announced a new partnership with UPS Capital Insurance Agency, Inc. (UPSCIA) for shippers to access InsureShield® Shipping Protection on the FORT Systems platform.  The partnership will make it easier than ever for wineries to protect high-value wine shipments.  Many wine shippers currently protect wine shipments through standard carrier liability, but the InsureShield solution provides far more comprehensive coverage and peace of mind. “We are very excited to be able to include an integrated InsureShield Protection option to companies shipping with FORT,” said co-founder Jim McClellan.  “We’ve heard dozens of stories from wineries that failed to receive sufficient compensation for packages that were damaged, lost, or stolen.  By integrating InsureShield into the platf

With these new features, FORT continues to help optimize storage, replenishment, put-away and picking, and now adds management of nested locations. MILL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES, August 30, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- FORT Systems, the leading provider of fulfillment software solutions for the beverage alcohol industry, today announced a new suite of advanced Warehouse Location Management features. This innovative addition to FORT’s WMS platform empowers businesses in the alcohol industry with enhanced control over warehouse operations, optimizing storage, and streamlining the flow of product movement. By leveraging our advanced tools, businesses can achieve optimal warehouse management and deliver exceptional service to their customers.” — Scott Liebman These features will enable multiple benefits for users, including: Creation and modification of location properties for batches Location Type: Flow Rack, Case, Pallet, Mobile or Totes that can be stored in