Towering white tents spread out across Wagner Park during last year’s Food & Wine Classic in Aspen.
Attendees dressed in Aspen casual strolled past dozens of vendors in the city’s dry June weather, showcasing their best food and beverage samples.
“It’s an exciting time to be in wine. It’s an exciting time to be in restaurants,” said Bobby Stuckey, a master sommelier, wine buyer and beverage director at restaurants in Boulder, Denver and Vail.
Stuckey imports most of his wine from Italy, which is where he was on “Liberation Day,” when Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on a variety of imports last year.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the tariffs unconstitutional in February, but they still had lasting impacts on businesses.
“We've been a wine importer for 20 years, which really equates to multiple presidential terms, and we have not seen something like this before,” he said.
Stuckey said his import company paid $1 million in tariffs in 2025, and he was unable to hire new people or expand the business.
But he is just one of thousands of importers affected by these fees.
Some vendors pulled out of the Food & Wine Classic last year, in part due to tariffs, said Ray Isle, an executive wine editor at Food & Wine magazine.
“I don’t think you can say that the tariffs are the one cause of people pulling out or staying in,” he said. “There's other stuff that goes on in any business that might affect that, but they certainly had more of an effect last year.”
Isle was in the courtroom for the initial hearings, since one of the main plaintiffs was a wine vendor. He was originally skeptical that the Supreme Court would impede Trump’s agenda, but he was surprised to see bipartisan opposition to the tariffs.
“It became pretty clear pretty quickly that there was a lot of skepticism about the administration’s side of the case — not just from the liberal justices, but from a number of the conservative justices as well,” he said.
The reversal could make it easier for businesses to participate in the Classic again, according to Aisle.
Burdens lifted, for now
Most Food & Wine vendors have to pay their own way, but the brand exposure wasn’t worth the additional financial burden for everyone in 2025.
Isle said, however, that some vendors are returning to Food & Wine this year after skipping out last summer.
“The court ruling against the administration definitely lifted a weight of uncertainty and financial pressure on wine importers,” he said.
For some, the victory was short-lived. After the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump immediately challenged the verdict and subsequent refunds, threatening more tariffs.
Keith E. Maskus, an economics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said there will be more lawsuits in the future, and he does not see tariffs going away anytime soon.
“I don't think there's any likelihood of that because there are several laws under which tariffs could be imposed and reimposed,” he said.
Maskus also said there is an increasing number of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., campaigning to decrease tariffs on behalf of several industries, including wine. But he is unsure if this strategy will succeed.
“It depends on how effective they are, how important the sector is, and to be honest, how much they're willing to pay the administration to do that,” Maskus said.
Stuckey is entitled to refunds on tariffs he paid last year that were unilaterally imposed by President Trump. He said that he tries to apply for refunds every day, but to no avail.
“I know we've been applying since we were allowed to apply,” he said. “We have not gotten a payment back. I don't know anyone who's gotten a payment back yet.”
Both Stuckey and Isle will be in Aspen this weekend, leading seminars for the Food & Wine Classic.
“We want people to delight in this whole world of food and the whole world of wine and not be limited by some government interventions on pricing,” Isle said.
“It's one of the joys of the whole thing. It's why I'm in it.”
Stuckey’s seminars will focus on the women behind Italy’s most coveted wine — all of whom have been impacted by the tariffs. Isle’s seminars highlight the economic tensions that tariffs have created between the U.S. and other countries.
He will teach audience members how to pair different types of high-end European wine with an all-American classic: burgers.
