Interesting article by JonBonne in Punch today: Bonne/Future of Calif Wine
crying alligator tears over the sale of Calera to Duckhorn and all gloom & doom over the future of the Calif wine biz as consolidation continues apace. It was well-known that Calera was one of his faves & I can see why Jon is crying in his beer over that.
But his gloom & doom since a bit premature to me. In the article, he then goes on to cite some of the newcomers (MarthaStoumen/Matthiassian/Massican/Forlorn-Hope/Cruse/Bedrock/etc) that are doing innovative things and make, for me, one of the most exciting periods in the history of Calif wine. He decries the failure of Calif to be the font of innovation that he sees now in France. Really?? France?? Probably the stodgiest wine scene in the World.
He cites the cost of land for new folks entering the business as one of the big hurdles for newcomers wanting to do exciting/innovative things. Hmmm…hasn’t seemed to hold back MarthaStoumen/Faith Armstrong-Foster/BryanHarrington and quite a few others.
So…I ain’t buying Jon’s scenario of gloom&doom. There’s a lot of exciting things going on in Calif. When I look at the things BryanHarrington is doing…I can hardly wait for his next release. NerelloMascalese? I’m already promised the first btl of that (now don’t let me down, Bryan!!). We had last night my first Sansigot. I can hardly wait until some hare-brained vintner brings that one in.
Tom
As I have been tolling around the state the fewyears, I have likely been the last to recognize a trend I really like…
I have been running into more and more “urban” wineries, where a winemaker with a vision sets up shop in an ‘all in one’ space - industrial parks, warehouse style complexes, etc. - and buys grapes and does all the rest in house.
The barrier to start up is not as steep and, if successful, can then lead to long term vineyard associations or buying land.
I’ve run into good and bad wine, but love the concept.
The winemakers and staff seem upbeat, lots more ‘good’ music played in tasting rooms, a generally good vibe with ‘wineries’ being very close together and lots of collaboration.
I recently had my first experiences at Herman Story and Desparada and they were perfect.
Big fun, friendly staff, wonderful tasting, affordable, able to buy wines…great experiences.
I think there is the California wine scene Jon Bonne would like to see and then there is the one wherein people buys lots of wine and winery owners get rich. Bonne went on an anti high alcohol rampage here and then watched Meomi sold to Constellation for hundreds of millions of dollars. Jon B always reminds me of those old surveys in which people say they prefer the NY Times to porn/Mad magazine/USA Today ten to one, when circulation figures show the opposite. He would like people to prefer CALERA over Meomi but it ain’t happening.
1/I had dinner with Josh Jensen a few weeks back and he was happy to spend Duckhorn money on nice Champagne for all of us. None of his kids wanted to get involved, maybe because they were not interested in flying around the country non stop to sell wine. I think we will see more of this. We boomers started a lot of wineries and not everyone digs this crazy life style. Of course, a lot of wineries were started with the idea of getting back to the land and everyone ended up living in airports. Jon depicts Josh as the poor son of a dentist and left out the part about Yale and Oxford. By the way, I don’t see the people who invested in Duckhorn as ruining everything. Let’s face it, if you loved Goldeneye and/or Duckhorn before these people bought the company then you are a happy camper to this day. On the other hand, if you thought the wines sucked, you probably still do. They will let Mike Waller make the wine at Calera and they will sell it.
2/If poor people want to own wineries in Napa, good luck with that, but I think it is easier to start a winery now than ever before because one can buy grapes and rent space. Of course, this takes some investment money but what doesn’t?? A nail salon?? A donut shop?? Indeed, if I read the numbers correctly, there are too many wineries out there.
3/I see that Nestle just bought Blue Bottle coffee?? Doesn’t everyone just want to cash out?? Remember how all the boutiques chocolatiers sold out to Nestle and Hershey for millions?? We’ve all survived.
4/Tom is not the only pot stirrer here. J Bonne is good at it as well. Indeed, that seems to be the role of the wine critic. There is nothing in it for Jon if he says everything is wonderful.
5/D@vid, what new things should I look for in French wines?? I spend too much time working and doing what my wife tells me to and don’t have enough time to keep up.
You bring up a lot of great points, and I also thought while I was reading Bonne’s article is how cyclical everything including the wine industry and the economy is and while corporations are currently busy in the acquisition mode they will also divest of assets pretty fast when the pinch on the top and/or bottom line is occurring. Isn’t that how guys like Beckstoffer built their businesses by initially buying vineyards through corporate divestitures?
Jon’s wrote an article in search of a point. For all the verbiage, all he said was that prices have gone up and some people are selling out while others are buying in. Pretty much sounds like Brooklyn or LA.
As far as France goes, there is in fact some interesting stuff happening there, especially in the south, where they made lots of plonk wine and now some people are waking up to make better wine. They’re held back by the laws limiting what they can plant - the government is as dysfunctional as ours. They don’t let people put in new acreage because then there will be too much wine in the world, so they just let all the new wine come from other countries and then their citizens riot if they can’t sell theirs. But there are some pretty good things coming out.
However, Jon is pretty limited in his outlook and there’s a lot more activity in other parts of Europe - Spain and Italy but especially in central and eastern Europe. Most of that was held back until the fall of the Soviet Union, but some of those places have made wine far longer than the French.
Most of all though, he neglects to mention the fact that you could still pick up land in Chateauneuf, Bordeaux, and even Burgundy back in the 1970s when those Napa wineries were starting. Those land prices have also gone up. However, since the US is vastly bigger than France, there are other states where land is still inexpensive. Not all wine has to come from Napa, after all.