People who make good wine have nothing to fear from cannabis competition

Graphics courtesy Silicon Valley Bank

The wine industry has been warily eyeing cannabis since before the first state legalized it. Now that a wave of legalization is spreading across the U.S., owners of small wineries are gettting nervous.

Wine sales are actually dropping for the first time in 25 years

Rob McMillan, executive vice president of Silicon Valley Bank's wine division, was especially gloomy about the future of wine in his influential annual report earlier this month. McMillan said millennials aren't buying as much wine as he expected, and they especially aren't buying expensive wine. (Here's a full story on McMillan's report.)

McMillan cited cannabis as one reason younger consumers aren't drinking as much wine. There is probably some truth to that, at the volume sales level.

Paradoxically, sales are dropping for the cheapest wines, even though supposedly-broke millennials can't afford wine. Sales for wines over $12 are continuing to climb.

Put these numbers together and here is the conclusion: Cannabis is not hurting all wine sales. It's hurting cheap wine sales. And not just with millennials. If you spend any time in cannabis shops in Northern California, you'll notice there are plenty of boomers buying weed. And as you can see from the next chart, it's not stopping them from buying wine.