Data was sourced from the April 2012 report on the Economic Impact of Washington Wine, produced by the Washington State Wine Commission. The report estimates that in 2011, the total economic impact of Washington’s wine industry was an astounding $8.6 billion within the state. The estimate of 2007 data showed an economic impact of $14.9 billion nationally.
The economic benefits of wine production spill over far beyond the state’s vineyards. Wine-related industries include “farm and wine machinery suppliers, bottle producers, cork and barrel finishers, marketing and professional services, banking, transport, laboratories, distribution, tourism, retailing, and restaurants.”
Winemaking generates employment. Washington wine and “allied industries” directly and indirectly provide about 30,000 full time jobs within the state, and over 71,000 nationally. All this wine-related work generates wages of about $1.2 billion within the state and $2.8 billion nationally. According to the report: “Washington’s wine industry directly and indirectly accounts for 1% of total employment.” In terms of tax revenues, in 2011 Washington wine-related industry paid $237.7 million in state and local taxes and nearly $305 million in federal taxes. Nationally, Washington wine generates $656.5 million annually in tax revenue to states and localities and $722.3 million in federal taxes.
Interestingly, while Benton County leads in wine production, King County places first in overall economic impact from wine-related industries “given its lead in supplier locations, the number of wineries in the county, particularly in Woodinville, and the density of visitors to the Woodinville wine community.”
Visualization was made with VIDA cloud software, freely available at vida.io.