American wine is fighting a demand problem with a marketing budget built for a growth era that ended four years ago. Almost every other agricultural sector facing this fight has a shared war chest. Wine doesn’t. Why not, and what would it actually take to change that?

At the end of July, Patrick Schmitt reported in The Drinks Business on a comment from Gino Colangelo, founder of Colangelo & Partners, that ought to sting more than it apparently does. The US wine trade, Colangelo said, “does not do a fantastic job” of collective marketing. Unlike dairy, almonds, or cranberries, which fund shared demand-building through established national bodies, American wine has no equivalent apparatus. Support for the pro-bono Come Over October campaign he co-founded with Karen MacNeil and Kimberly Charles has arrived, in his words, in “fits and starts,” and the level of backing from the very companies the campaign exists to help has been “frankly, at times a bit discouraging.”

He offered a metaphor worth sitting with. Market presence, he said, behaves like an electric car rather than a petrol one: take your foot off the accelerator and it doesn’t coast. It stops.

Here is the question that follows, and it is not rhetorical. If the mechanism for sustained, sector-wide demand-building already exists in federal law, has been used successfully by roughly twenty other American commodities for decades, and is available to any industry that can demonstrate substantial support, why has American wine never seriously pursued one? And is the answer to that question still a good answer in 2026?

First, the honest accounting

Any argument for collective investment has to start with the size of the problem, because the case rests entirely on whether this is a dip or a floor shift.

Start domestically. The volume of wine entering the US market, measured by taxable removals, has fallen from a peak of 743 million gallons in 2020 to 554 million gallons in 2025, roughly a 25% contraction in five years. Silicon Valley Bank’s 2026 State of the US Wine Industry Report, its 25th annual edition, put 2025 industry sales at approximately $74.3 billion on about 329 million cases, down from $75.5 billion and 335.9 million cases the year prior. Rob McMillan’s forecast in that report is not a comfortable one: he expects the market to bottom somewhere in 2027 through 2028 before returning to modest growth. His framing is the sharper part. “This is not a cycle you can wait out.”

The direct-to-consumer channel, long treated as the small producer’s escape hatch from distributor gatekeeping, is contracting faster than the total market. DTC shipments fell roughly 15% by volume and 6% by value in 2025, and 2026 is tracking to finish 15% smaller by volume again. Winery shipments in June 2026 fell 16% year over year, the weakest pace in a decade.

On the supply side, the correction is physical and visible from the road. California growers pulled close to 40,000 acres between October 2024 and August 2025, about 7% of the state’s winegrape acreage, with industry estimates pointing to a comparable removal pace continuing. Roughly 30% of California’s winegrapes went unsold in 2025 by Sonoma County Winegrowers’ accounting. Acreage that stood near 610,000 in 2023 sits closer to 540,000 today.

Globally, the picture rhymes. The OIV’s State of the World Wine Sector in 2025, released in May 2026, recorded global consumption at 208 million hectolitres, down 2.7% and marking a fourth consecutive annual decline. Vineyard surface has now contracted six years running, to roughly 7.0 million hectares. Production sat at 227 million hectolitres, a marginal uptick in 2024 but well below the five-year average, which is the only reason the market looks even roughly balanced.

Layer on trade friction. The US and EU settled on a flat 15% duty on European wine, and EU27 wine exports fell 13.2% in value and 16.4% in volume through April 2026. US wine imports dropped 38.9% in value in Q1 2026. Tariffs reshuffle who sells what to whom; they do not create a single new wine drinker.

And underneath all of it sits the demand-side story that no supply correction addresses: GLP-1 adoption, sustained moderation and sober-curious behavior among younger cohorts, competition from RTDs and THC beverages, and a media environment in which wine is discussed primarily as an ethanol delivery vehicle. Mike Veseth of The Wine Economist has been naming this for years as one leg of wine’s “triple crisis,” which is environmental, economic, and, most stubbornly, an identity crisis. “If wine doesn’t know who it is and what it is and cannot tell its story to the world,” he wrote, “then how can it survive?”

That is a demand problem. Demand problems are not solved by pulling vines.

Why individual winery marketing cannot carry this

Here is where the argument gets uncomfortable for anyone who believes in brand-building as the answer, and it’s worth being precise rather than dismissive.

There are more than 11,000 wineries in the United States. By most industry counts, something on the order of 85% of them produce fewer than 5,000 cases a year. Do the arithmetic on what that means for marketing capacity. A 3,000-case producer selling at a healthy average of $30 a bottle grosses roughly $1.08 million at full retail, and far less at wholesale. A marketing budget at even an aggressive 10% of revenue buys perhaps a part-time marketing hire, a website refresh, and a modest event calendar. It does not buy a media campaign. It does not buy consumer research. It does not buy a seat at the table when the Dietary Guidelines are revised.

But the deeper issue isn’t budget size. It’s what economists call the free rider problem, and it is the specific market failure that checkoff programs were invented to solve. When a single winery spends money persuading a 29-year-old that wine belongs at their dinner table, the overwhelming majority of the value created flows to producers who spent nothing. They will buy wine. They may never buy that winery’s wine. Any rational individual operator, facing that math, underinvests in category-building and overinvests in brand-switching, trying to take share from the winery down the road rather than growing the pool.

Which is exactly what an industry in contraction ends up doing. Veseth described the shift precisely: when growth stops, the game changes “from a positive-sum fight, where a rising tide raises all ships, to a zero-sum fight for market share.”

Regional bodies do genuinely fill part of the gap, and Colangelo was careful to say so. The Napa Valley Vintners, Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, and Finger Lakes Wine Alliance all do serious work. But regional marketing, by design, competes for share within the category rather than expanding it. A brilliant Willamette Valley campaign that converts a Napa buyer has moved a dollar, not created one.

Meanwhile the counterparties are organized. Wines of Georgia, Chianti Classico, the Prosecco DOC Consortium, and Chile’s national body all invest consistently in the US market and build share incrementally, year after year, funded through structures American wine simply does not have. The EU underwrites member-state promotion in the US market as a matter of policy. American producers compete against that asymmetry using pooled voluntary goodwill and donated hours.

So what exactly is a checkoff, and would wine even qualify?

A commodity checkoff program is a federally authorized, industry-funded mechanism for generic promotion, research, and consumer information. It is the machinery behind “Got Milk?”, “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner,” “Pork. The Other White Meat,” and “The Incredible, Edible Egg.” Producers, first handlers, or importers pay a mandatory assessment on units of trade. A board, appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture from industry nominations and overseen by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, directs the funds. Crucially, the promotion must be generic: it lifts the commodity, never a brand. Collectively these programs move roughly $750 million a year.

Most operate under the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996. And here is the fact that surprises most people in the wine trade when they first encounter it: the statute’s definition of “agricultural commodity” at 7 U.S.C. § 7412 expressly includes “agricultural, horticultural, viticultural, and dairy products,” and separately includes “products processed or manufactured from” those products, as the Secretary determines appropriate.

Viticultural. It’s in the text. The statutory door is not locked, which reframes the entire question. The barrier to a wine checkoff has never been primarily that Congress forgot about grapes.

Then why hasn’t it happened?

Several reasons, and they deserve to be taken seriously rather than waved past. Some remain sound. Others look increasingly like artifacts of a market that no longer exists.

The industry is not one industry. Checkoffs work best on near-homogeneous commodities where a consumer genuinely cannot distinguish one producer’s output from another’s. An egg is an egg. Wine is the opposite by design. A $9 Central Valley bottling and a $300 Napa Cabernet are the same commodity only in a legal sense. Generic promotion serves the volume end of the market obviously and the luxury end far less obviously, which means the largest assessment payers and the smallest have genuinely divergent interests. This is the hardest problem, and no amount of enthusiasm dissolves it.

Alcohol is regulated differently, and the politics are live. Wine sits under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act and TTB advertising rules, not the produce-aisle regime. A USDA-supervised body promoting an alcoholic beverage, which under Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association would legally constitute government speech, invites a public health fight that no other checkoff commodity has to have. The Surgeon General’s advisory on alcohol and cancer risk and the ongoing Dietary Guidelines process make that fight immediate rather than hypothetical.

The trade already has associations, and turf is real. Wine Institute, WineAmerica, state and regional associations, and the Wine Market Council all occupy adjacent ground. A new mandatory-assessment body raises unavoidable questions about overlap, authority, and whose budget shrinks. Institutional self-preservation is a genuine force, not a cynical invention.

Checkoffs have a contested record. Producers have sued. In United States v. United Foods (2001) the Supreme Court struck the mushroom checkoff on First Amendment grounds; four years later Johanns upheld the beef checkoff on government-speech reasoning. The American Egg Board’s campaign against a vegan mayonnaise competitor became a genuine scandal. Hog farmers voted in 2000 to terminate the pork checkoff and the Secretary of Agriculture voided the result. Bills like the Voluntary Checkoff Program Participation Act have recurred across multiple Congresses. Anyone selling a checkoff as uncomplicated is selling something.

And, most simply: for most of the last forty years, American wine was growing. Nobody organizes a collective response to a problem they don’t have.

What it would actually take today

USDA AMS publishes the path, and it is neither mysterious nor short. A complete proposal to the AMS Administrator must contain six elements: an industry analysis profiling volume, value, geographic distribution, imports, and the number of large and small businesses; a justification identifying the marketing problem, the alternatives considered and why they were rejected, and the revenue an optimum assessment rate would generate; a statement of objectives; a small-business impact analysis; documented evidence of industry support; and the full text of the proposed order.

AMS is explicit that it will consider a proposal only where there is substantial industry support. That single clause is the whole ballgame. Everything else is drafting.

From there: proposed rule in the Federal Register, public comment, and a referendum. Under 7 U.S.C. § 7417, an order can be written to require approval by a majority of those voting, by voters representing a majority of volume, or (the demanding version) by both. A required referendum follows within three years of assessments beginning if no initial one was held, another within seven years, and further votes whenever the board requests or 10% of eligible voters demand one. There is a permanent exit ramp, by statute.

The precedent worth studying is pecans. The American Pecan Promotion Board was approved in January 2021 and began collecting assessments that October, making pecans the first crop to hold both a federal marketing order and a research and promotion program. It took years of organizing. It is also proof that the door is open, because new checkoffs are still being created, in this decade, under this administrative regime.

A wine proposal would have to resolve design questions the pecan industry never faced. Who pays: winegrape growers, wineries as first handlers, or both? Are imports assessed, and if not, does a campaign funded by American producers end up growing the category for Italian and Spanish brands? Does the rate scale with bottle price or apply flat per gallon, and what happens to a 1,200-case producer under either? Where is the small-producer exemption threshold? Is the mandate demand-building, or does it extend to research, health-and-nutrition science, and the defensive advocacy the sector currently improvises?

The case for, stated plainly

Scale that nothing else can reach. Even a modest assessment across a $74 billion market produces a budget an order of magnitude beyond anything the sector currently mobilizes for collective work.

Permanence, which is the actual point. Colangelo’s electric-car metaphor is really an argument about funding structure. Voluntary campaigns run on donated time and stop when the donors get tired. A checkoff’s assessments arrive whether or not anyone is feeling generous that quarter.

It disproportionately helps the small. A 2,500-case winery in the Finger Lakes cannot commission consumer research or fund category advocacy. It can benefit from both. Checkoffs are, structurally, a redistribution of marketing capability from those who have it to those who don’t.

Research, not just advertising. Statutory scope covers viticultural and enological research, market data, and consumer education. For a sector facing climate adaptation and a contested health-science environment, that may matter more than any campaign.

Measurable returns, in other commodities. Harry Kaiser’s Cornell analysis found the beef checkoff returned roughly $11.20 per dollar invested across 2006 to 2013, with a benefit-cost ratio of $11.91 for 2014 to 2018. Wine is not beef and those numbers will not transfer intact, but the mechanism is not speculative.

It answers the subsidy asymmetry. It is a structural response to EU-funded promotion in the American market, rather than an annual complaint about it.

The case against, stated just as plainly

It’s a mandatory cost during a margin crisis. Asking producers to fund a new assessment in the same year they are pulling vines and laying off staff is an extraordinarily hard sell, and dismissing that objection as short-sighted would be both wrong and politically fatal.

Generic promotion may not fit a differentiated product. “Drink more wine” is a weaker proposition than “drink more milk,” and the industry cannot agree on what the shared message even is. If the answer is “wine is agriculture, culture, and connection,” which is Come Over October’s premise, then that is a values campaign rather than a product campaign, and the evidence base for its commercial return is thinner.

Governance risk is documented. Checkoff boards have been credibly accused of capture by the largest payers, of anticompetitive behavior, and of drifting into activity Congress never authorized. Wine’s structural concentration, with a handful of companies moving most of the volume and thousands of small producers holding most of the votes, makes governance design the difference between an asset and a grievance machine.

Litigation is close to certain. Some producers will sue. Johanns provides a workable defense, but the Ninth Circuit’s 2021 R-CALF ruling shows the government-speech doctrine holds only where USDA maintains genuine control, which constrains how nimble a wine board could ever be.

Political exposure runs in both directions. A federal board promoting alcohol consumption is a standing target. And the government-speech framing that makes the program constitutional is precisely what makes every campaign a political artifact.

Free riding on imports. Imports hold substantial US share. A campaign that grows category demand without assessing importers subsidizes competitors, and assessing importers invites trade-law complications on top of everything else.

What durability over decades would require

If the goal is a program that survives its second referendum, its first lawsuit, and its first hostile Congress, a handful of conditions look non-negotiable.

Governance that credibly represents the many, not just the large. Weighted or tiered representation so that a 2,000-case producer sees the board as theirs. The 10% referendum-petition threshold means an alienated small-producer base can force a termination vote, and eventually will.

A small-producer exemption set high enough to be real. Existing checkoffs exempt below defined thresholds. Set it wrong and the program collects rounding errors from the people least able to pay while generating maximum resentment.

A mandate broader than advertising. Research, market data, category defense, and consumer education give the program value even when a given campaign underperforms, which some will.

Independent, published measurement from day one. Commission the econometric evaluation before the first dollar is spent, publish it, and let it be criticized. Every checkoff that has lost a referendum lost it because payers could not see what they were buying.

Discipline about scope. The egg board’s anti-competitor campaign is the cautionary tale. A wine board that drifts into attacking RTDs or spirits will lose in court and deserve to.

A defensible relationship with public health. This is the condition most likely to be underestimated. A program built to argue that Americans should drink more will lose. A program built around wine as agriculture, as food, as culture, and as moderate consumption within established guidance can hold ground for decades. Come Over October and Share & Pair Sundays, which together have reached nearly 3 billion media impressions and 5.6 million on social media, have arguably already prototyped the message. What they lack is a balance sheet.

And honest sequencing. This is a five-to-ten-year project. Feasibility study, coalition, drafting, AMS submission, rulemaking, referendum. If the sector waits for the bottom McMillan forecasts in 2027 and 2028 to arrive before starting, the program launches into the recovery instead of shaping it.

Where WineAmerica fits

It is worth being clear about what WineAmerica is and isn’t, because the distinction matters to this question.

Founded in 1978 and rebranded to its current name in 2003, WineAmerica describes itself as the only national winery trade association in the United States, representing more than 600 members across 45 states, with a mission to advance the industry through sound public policy. Its work is federal government affairs: modernizing Prohibition-era law, the Congressional Wine Caucus, the annual fly-in, TTB and Dietary Guidelines engagement. Its 2025 Economic Impact Study, conducted by John Dunham & Associates, put the American wine industry’s total economic contribution at roughly $323 billion supporting 1.75 million jobs, with state-by-state detail. That is precisely the kind of documentation an AMS industry analysis demands.

That is a federal public affairs role, and it is a distinct thing from a checkoff board. A research and promotion board would be a separate entity, established by federal order, appointed by the Secretary, and supervised by AMS. WineAmerica would not become it.

But the AMS process runs on exactly two things WineAmerica already possesses: documented industry data and demonstrated national industry support. A sponsor is needed, meaning an organization credible enough in Washington to convene the coalition, commission the feasibility work, and carry a proposal to the Administrator’s desk. Whether WineAmerica takes that role, shares it with Wine Institute and the state associations, or declines it, is a legitimate open question. It is not, however, a question anyone else is currently positioned to answer.

Who has already been asking

This idea has been circling for years, mostly without a name attached to it. Credit where it belongs: The Drinks Business, The Wine Economist, Silicon Valley Bank, Wine Business Monthly, and various others. What has not yet happened, as far as the public record shows, is anyone filing a formal proposal with AMS. Which raises the closing question.

The question worth arguing about

Colangelo believes the downturn is fundamentally cyclical, but he attached a condition to that optimism. “If we’re aggressive and we promote and we communicate and we advocate,” he said, “then we could shorten that cycle, and the trough won’t be quite as deep.”

That is a conditional, and it names the variable. The depth and duration of this trough are partly a function of what the industry chooses to do about demand. Doing something about demand at national scale costs money that no single winery can justify spending alone. That is a textbook collective action problem, and American agriculture solved it in 1996 with a statute that explicitly contemplates viticultural products.

The mechanism exists. The legal authority appears to exist. The economic case is stronger now than at any point in living memory. What seems to be missing is a convener, a funded feasibility study, and an industry willing to have a genuinely difficult conversation about whether a $9 bottle and a $300 bottle share enough interest to share a budget.

Maybe the answer is no. That would be a real finding, and worth knowing.

Tim’s Disclaimer

I am not a checkoff expert, a policy specialist, or a lawyer, and I have no financial stake in the American wine industry. I don’t own vines, a winery, or a distribution business. What I am is a curious marketer who finds this question genuinely interesting, and who has spent years serving state and national checkoff programs in the development and implementation of successful campaigns..

As an AI strategist, yes, this piece is largely AI sourced with ‘human in the middle’ review.

Frequently Asked Questions

A national wine checkoff: the questions producers ask first

What is a commodity checkoff program, in one sentence?

A federally authorized program under which producers, handlers, or importers of an agricultural commodity pay a mandatory assessment that funds generic promotion, research, and consumer information for the category as a whole, never for individual brands, under USDA oversight.

Is a wine checkoff legally possible, or would Congress have to act first?

The statutory authority appears to already exist. The Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996 defines “agricultural commodity” at 7 U.S.C. § 7412 to include “viticultural” products and products processed or manufactured from them, as the Secretary of Agriculture determines appropriate. That said, no federal checkoff has ever covered an alcoholic beverage, and the interaction with the Federal Alcohol Administration Act and TTB advertising rules is untested. This is a question for counsel, not a settled matter.

Who would pay the assessment?

That is a design decision made in the proposed order. Options include winegrape growers, wineries acting as first handlers, importers, or some combination. Each allocation produces different winners and losers, and it is likely the single most contentious element of any proposal.

How much would it cost a small winery?

Unknowable until a rate and an exemption threshold are proposed. For scale: the almond assessment is $0.03 per pound; the beef checkoff is $1 per head. Most checkoffs exempt producers below a defined volume. Setting that exemption is a central design question, not an afterthought.

Could the money be used to promote my winery specifically?

No. Checkoff funds must support generic promotion of the commodity without reference to specific producers or brands. That restriction is what makes the program legally durable under the government-speech doctrine, and it is also why some larger brands view checkoffs as a subsidy to their competitors.

Would the industry get to vote on it?

Yes. Under 7 U.S.C. § 7417, an order can require approval by a majority of those voting, by voters representing a majority of volume, or both. A follow-up referendum is required within three years of assessments beginning if no initial vote was held, another within seven years, and additional votes can be triggered by the board or by 10% of eligible voters at any time.

Can a checkoff be terminated if it isn’t working?

Yes, by referendum or by the Secretary of Agriculture. The most-cited cautionary example is the 2000 pork referendum, in which producers voted to terminate and the Secretary voided the result, which is a reminder that the exit ramp is real but not automatic.

Haven’t checkoffs been ruled unconstitutional?

Partially, and then largely not. The Supreme Court struck the mushroom checkoff in United States v. United Foods (2001) on First Amendment grounds, then upheld the beef checkoff in Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association (2005) by classifying the speech as government speech, which producers have no First Amendment right to refuse to fund. A Montana federal court ruled against aspects of the beef checkoff’s operation in 2017; the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of the broader R-CALF challenge in 2021. Litigation should be assumed, not feared.

Wouldn’t this just duplicate what Wine Institute, WineAmerica, and the regional associations already do?

It would overlap at the edges and differ at the core. Existing bodies are voluntary-membership organizations doing advocacy, compliance support, and regional marketing. A checkoff board would be a federal entity with mandatory funding and a statutory mandate limited to generic promotion, research, and information. The overlap question is real and is exactly the kind of thing a feasibility study should resolve before anyone drafts an order.

What about imported wine? Would it be assessed?

Only if the order says so. Existing checkoffs vary; some assess importers, some don’t. Leaving imports out means American producers fund category growth that benefits foreign competitors. Including them raises trade-law questions. There is no clean answer, only a choice.

How long would this take?

Realistically five to ten years from serious start to first assessment. Feasibility study, coalition-building, drafting, AMS submission, Federal Register rulemaking with public comment, and referendum. The pecan program, the most recent major example, took years of organizing before its January 2021 approval.

What’s the single biggest obstacle?

Not law, and not process. AMS states plainly that it will consider a proposal only where there is substantial industry support. The obstacle is persuading a fragmented sector, in which a $9 bottle and a $300 bottle have genuinely different interests, that they share enough common ground to share a budget.

Is anyone actually working on this right now?

No formal proposal appears in the public record at USDA AMS. The conversation is happening in trade media and in private. Turning it into a filing requires a sponsor, funding for the required industry analysis, and documented evidence of support.

What can an individual winery do about this today?

Three things that cost little: raise it with your state association and with WineAmerica and Wine Institute; support the existing voluntary campaigns so the category message keeps developing while the structural question is debated; and press for a funded, independent feasibility study rather than another panel discussion.

Sources

1.      Patrick Schmitt, “US wine industry risks losing ground without collective marketing,” The Drinks Business, 31 July 2026. https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2026/07/us-wine-industry-risks-losing-ground-without-collective-marketing/

2.      Commodity checkoff program, Wikipedia (overview and program list). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_checkoff_program

3.      USDA AMS, “How to Propose a New R&P Program”. https://www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/research-promotion/how-to-propose

4.      7 U.S.C. § 7412, Definitions (Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/7412

5.      7 U.S.C. § 7417, Referenda. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/7/7417

6.      Silicon Valley Bank, State of the US Wine Industry Report 2026 (Rob McMillan). https://www.svb.com/trends-insights/reports/wine-report/

7.      OIV, State of the World Wine Sector in 2025 (May 2026). https://www.oiv.int/press/state-world-wine-sector-2025-tariffs-climate-and-consumer-trends-drive-sector-adaptation

8.      “2026 Direct-to-Consumer Wine Shipping Report Reveals Record Declines,” WineBusiness.com. https://www.winebusiness.com/news/article/313246

9.      “U.S. winery shipments fell 16% in June to their weakest pace in a decade,” Vinetur, July 2026. https://www.vinetur.com/en/20260722104673/us-winery-shipments-fell-16-in-june-to-their-weakest-pace-in-a-decade.html

10.   “California Vineyards Accelerate Removals as Growers Target 40,000 Acres,” Vinetur. https://www.vinetur.com/en/2026021096139/california-vineyards-accelerate-removals-as-growers-target-40000-acres-in-2025.html

11.   “EU Wine Exports Down 13% Through April 2026,” Wine Industry Advisor. https://wineindustryadvisor.com/2026/07/09/eu27-wine-exports-continue-downward-trend-in-first-four-months-of-2026-new-data-shows/

12.   Mike Veseth, “Got Wine? Is It Time for a Generic Wine Promotion Campaign?” The Wine Economist, Dec. 2019. https://wineeconomist.com/2019/12/03/got-wine-is-it-time-for-a-generic-wine-promotion-campaign/

13.   Mike Veseth, “Anatomy of Wine’s Triple Crisis,” The Wine Economist, March 2026. https://wineeconomist.com/2026/03/03/triple-crisis/

14.   WineAmerica, About / 2025 Economic Impact Study. https://wineamerica.org/economic-impact-study-2025/

15.   “Pecan Promotion, Research, and Information Order,” Federal Register, 13 Jan. 2021. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/01/13/2021-00328/pecan-promotion-research-and-information-order

16.   “ROI Study Shows $11.20 Return on Checkoff Dollar” (Kaiser, Cornell), Hoard’s Dairyman. https://hoards.com/article-13220-roi-study-shows-$1120-return-on-checkoff-dollar.html

17.   National Agricultural Law Center, Checkoff Programs overview. https://nationalaglawcenter.org/research-by-topic/checkoff-programs/

18.   “Come Together, A Community for Wine marks Two and a Half Years,” Wine Industry Advisor, 30 July 2026. https://wineindustryadvisor.com/2026/07/30/come-together-a-community-for-wine-marks-two-and-a-half-years-of-reconnecting-america/

19.   GAO-18-54, Agricultural Promotion Programs: USDA Could Build on Existing Efforts to Further Strengthen Its Oversight. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-18-54

Note on figures: market and acreage data reflect the most recent published reporting available as of August 2026 and are drawn from the sources listed above. Assessment rates and program designs cited for other commodities are illustrative of scale, not proposals for wine. Nothing here is legal advice; the applicability of the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996 to a beverage regulated under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act is an open question requiring counsel.