PHILADELPHIA — The bar was buzzing at in East Passyunk's newest hotspot, and the drink of choice was wine, mostly imported. As patrons grazed on picture-perfect Comté ravioles and herb-flecked lentil salad, they ponied up to the bar and counters at Supérette on Saturday and sipped on Slovenian pet-nat, an Italian white blend, and muscadet and Syrah from France — all for $16 a glass or less. On the shelves by the cheese-and-meat case, the collection of retail bottles hails from Portugal, Austria, Spain, and beyond, with price points ranging from $22 to $85. (There's some American and South American representation, too, of course.)

How would this scene change if President Donald Trump levies the 200% tariff on European wine he first floated last week? It's too soon to tell, according to Supérette's Chloe Grigri, who also co-owns Superfolie, the Good King Tavern, and Le Caveau — all wonderful, wine-forward bars in Philly. (Grigri's dad and business partner, Bernard, is originally from France, and her travels there have influenced all of the above bars.)

"I think anything that comes out of Donald Trump's mouth is performative and exaggerative, so I don't think we know quite enough right this second to say exactly what those tariffs will look like," Grigri said in an interview last Friday.

Grigri has a point of reference from 2019, though, when the Trump administration imposed a 25% on wine from France, Germany, Spain, and Britain, as well as many other imported specialties from the European Union (think olive oil, cheese, Scotch, etc.). "We took a hit," she said, adding that she had been building up inventory for then-newly opened Le Caveau, which helped mitigate the immediate financial impact at the time. Many importers and distributors who had been planning ahead did the same, controlling costs for their customers. Her first thought when she heard about the 200% tariff proposal — a response to a 50% tariff on American whiskey that's slated to go into effect in the EU on April 1 — was, "Here we go again."

"I gotta say, though, now that I'm in more of a retail game with Supérette open, it's much harder to keep wine on the shelves, so it's a little bit scarier for us right now," Grigri said. "It's already a challenge in the state of Pennsylvania to offer things at an affordable price point. So I don't have a clear answer as to how we would tackle it, honestly. But there's no question that the cost of the wine sitting on the shelves, the price would go up."

Supérette sells American wine — a glass of vidal blanc from Virginia's Early Mountain Vineyards goes for $15 a glass — but overhauling the menu to be geared toward domestic wine wouldn't be an easy solution. Though Grigri said that American wineries are doing great work, "it's not like you're saving a ton of money by choosing to work with domestic producers." Switching Supérette's focus to American wine would also result in a completely different animal than the casual cave à manger-meets-épicerie that Grigri and partner Vincent Stipo have created: "Our whole ethos is kind of grounded in French wine, so it would be a matter of flipping the entire concept on its head."

American wine importers and distributors have warned that the tariffs could have drastic effects — wiping some of them out entirely — at a time when American winemakers are facing hardships of their own (falling sales, an oversupply of grapes, and climate change among them). Meanwhile, some Canadian liquor stores have been removing American whiskey, wine, and more from their shelves following the escalation of a tariff war with one of the country's largest trading partner.

"This would not be a positive thing for anybody," Grigri said. "At the end of the day, winemakers are going to sell their wine wherever they can, and there are other parts of the world that would buy their wine. It's going to hit the American people. It's going to hit wine drinkers, because wine is going to become inaccessible. ... It will change the way that any restaurant or wine retailer does business. It will destroy importers and distributors in this country, and it will eventually lead to a lot of American people not having jobs anymore. It's totally unacceptable."

Grigri plans on calling her local representatives to urge against imposing the tariffs. She's encouraging her colleagues to do the same. She said that she's been meditating on a quote frequently attributed to Karl Marx. "Be careful to trust the person who does not like wine."

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