Blog / May 28, 2026
The TTB Approved More Than 1,600 Eastern European and Caucasus Wine Labels in 2025. Volume Went Kaput
By Zillah Bahar, Founder, COLAClear
US importers filed 1,638 wine label approvals from 14 Eastern European and Caucasus countries with TTB in 2025. That number, by itself, looks like a category waking up.
It isn’t.
According to Gomberg & Fredrikson data, the volume of Eastern European and Caucasus wine actually entering the United States fell roughly 74 percent in the twelve months ending Q1 2026 versus the prior twelve months. Moldova alone — the region’s volume leader — dropped from 2.21 million units to 463,000, a 79 percent decline. Georgia fell 34 percent. Macedonia fell 38 percent. The only one of these countries that held roughly steady was Armenia, at a 6 percent decline. (Source: BW166, US Wine Import Volume by Country, LTM Q1 2026.)
For comparison, all US wine imports fell 7 percent over the same window. Eastern Europe and the Caucasus are collapsing ten times faster than the overall import category. The only major region actually growing in volume is Oceania, led by New Zealand at +16 percent.
The cultural story is a red herring
The easy explanation for the COLA filings is the cultural one: Millennials and Gen Z drinking less but spending more per bottle, orange wine subscriptions and skin-contact wine fairs, Georgia’s UNESCO-listed qvevri tradition as the origin story for natural wine, the “Georgia, Naturally” trade campaign, and the post-2022 pivot of Moldova and Georgia from Russian to Western markets. Apple TV+ even gave Georgian wine its own arc: the 2026 second season of Drops of God sent its protagonists to Kartli to save a qvevri winery from a hostile relative threatening to rip out the vines and build a golf course.
All of it is true. None of it is moving the volume. Cultural trends explain the importer enthusiasm – but not the empty shelves.
Georgia’s own export data showed a real 2024 spike — 58 percent volume growth and 51 percent value growth to the United States, per the National Wine Agency of Georgia. By Q1 2026, BW166’s US-side import figures show that growth has reversed: Georgia is down 34 percent. The 2024 peak was real. Consumer follow-through was not.
What’s actually happening
Three factors fit the data.
Brand relocation. According to BW166’s Jon Moramarco, the Moldovan brand XXL moved production to California. The bottles didn’t leave US shelves; they changed the column they’re tracked in. One brand swung Moldova’s entire country line.
Tariff chaos. The February 2026 Supreme Court ruling on IEEPA-based tariffs, plus ongoing litigation around the Section 122 replacement, made the EU-vs-non-EU duty math unpredictable. Importers who filed labels during a brief 2024-2025 window of advantage are now sitting on approvals they may never use at the cost they originally modeled.
Supply-side bet, no consumer pull. Importers placed bets on a category they expected to break out. Consumers did not validate the bet. Labels got approved. Wine did not move.
What this means for US producers
There is a story here for the domestic side, and it cuts against the conventional “imports take shelf from domestic” framing.
If the consumer demand for orange wine, low-intervention wine, and story-driven small-production wine is real — and the subscription growth and natural-wine fair attendance suggest it is — someone is selling those wines. It does not appear to be Eastern European and Caucasus producers. The category opportunity is being filled by California natural-wine producers who make the same style of wine without the import-side cost overhead, duty exposure, or supply-chain risk.
The XXL move is the literal case: a Moldovan brand decided California was the better place to make wine for the US market. Tariffs may have been a factor but watch for whether more follow.
Why the gap matters
COLA filings show what US importers are organizing to do. Volume data shows what actually moves through the system to consumers. When the two diverge by this much, something is happening on the supply side that the demand side has not absorbed. In 2025, the Eastern European and Caucasus story is one of importers placing bets the consumers did not take.
COLAClear pre-screens wine labels — domestic and imported — against the same regulatory framework TTB applies. Free during public beta at colaclear.com.
Related reading: 22 of the Top 25 U.S. Wine COLA Filers Are Importers covers where the compliance burden actually concentrates. What imported wine labels need that domestic ones don’t covers the import-specific TTB requirements.
Sources: TTB Public COLA Registry, 2025 calendar year. BW166, US Wine Import Volume by Country, LTM Q1 2026. National Wine Agency of Georgia, 2024 export figures (via Wines of Georgia, December 2024).
Zillah Bahar is the founder of COLAClear, a COLA pre-screening platform for wine and spirits labels.