California Pinot Noir, what will/should happen next?

What should we be expecting in the next few years in regard to development in California Pinot Noir?

A sea of mediocre Pinot will flood the market, put in the hands of large distributors who will use their leverage to turn great wine lists into crappy ones when the buyers fall prey to their sales tactics.

Pinot is not White Zinfandel, but you may start seeing some that taste similar in order to attract the crowd that likes sweet wine and can now order a Pinot for $6 - $8 on a wine list by the glass.

So to me, it’s the buyers who will have the most impact, and I just hope they don’t fall prey (esp. restaurants) to these deals offering crappy, mass produced Pinot just to save a buck. I’ve already seen many restaurants scale back the creative side of their wine lists, and for me, that means I order less wine and will less likely return.

Maybe not what you were looking for, but my thoughts as to what I’m seeing in the market already.

T-bone, in the future there will be no restaurants (nor retailers) because they can’t afford to stay in business with current expenses, especially commercial rents! But that’s another thread?

If the Fiddlechix at the tasting room tell you that a blood spattered, disheveled, malodorous vagrant was looking for you at 11 a.m. it was me! Worked cows earlier and stopped in town for supplies, before heading home to cleanup and git to HdR.

I wanted to know how much tequila to bring tomorrow night to mile marker 7.28?

Makes sense T-Bone. I was interested in seeing what trends might come about. Also, I was interested in knowing if people were thinking along the lines of different clones being planted, different regions being planted, different regions gaining (declining) in popularity, more expensive bottles, less single/more vineyard designates, (God forbid) open experimental blending with other varietals, higher/lower yields, increased dry farming, longer/shorter elevage, Hungarian Oak, more/less new oak, cement vats, etc.


Just for fun it would be interesting to see Carneros get more attention and using lower yields. I’d like to see more time in barrel, less expensive bottles, less vineyard designating, no blending, lower yields where necessary, and more diverse clones being planted.

I’m afraid your crystal ball might hold the truth. It pains me to find good Pinot to pour BTG at a reasonable price. The one’s I do find are impossible to load up on too so the hunt is never ending. Why can’t producers put out a solid drinking “second” label @ $15/btl retail with some consistency? I don’t even care if it carries a vintage. I truly think New Zealand might become the leader in this category.

To the original question, I think the proliferation of large scaled Pinots will continue to dominate the market as long as the critics tout them as the cats’ meow. Big Pinots will be favored like breast implants were until the consumer base realizes au natural can’t be beat.

at least one producer seems to have recognized the error of his previous ways. i swore off Copain years ago but maybe i should revisit? meanwhile i’ll eat @ home and drink PN i adore rather than throw darts @ a very expensive board in some restaurant.

http://podcasts.copainwines.com/Copain_Wines/Part_1.html

At Copain, Wells is making some of the most interesting, complex, and thought-worthy wines in California right now.

No matter what happens in the bigger producer market, I know we’ll be able to count on dedicated, passionate producers being around to make high quality Pinot for us. There is a lot of life left in the learning curve for this grape in Cali.

Tru dat in regard to Wells at Copain.

In the larger market I think it will eventually go the way of Merlot. It will get overplanted and the swill factor will dominate the market. I mean, Gallo planted crap loads in Bakersfield. Pinot in Bakersfield. Wrap your head around that one.
As for the small producers, there may be a trend towards a more restrained style, but until the bulk of the critics start taking off points for overblown candy Pinot, I doubt things will change considerably.

pinot rasins. amarone made from pinot. sounds pretty yummy.

I think Robitussin will actually get into the Pinot business . . .

On the subject of why good, inexpensive ($15) pinot noir is not available, I think the truth is that it can’t be grown, produced, aged, packaged, and shipped that cheaply.

Pinot noir as a winegrape requires a lot of attentive farming to achieve quality. I won’t try to explain all of the nuances - rather, I’ll leave that to the growers.

In the winery, pinot noir is typically fermented in tiny fermenters and punched down by hand, rather than being fermented in huge tanks with automated pumpovers.

Pinot noir is almost always aged exclusively in French oak barrels… at current exchange rates those are nearly $1000 USD each. Yes, they are reused but the costs still add up.

Pinot noir is also typically grown and produced in relatively small lots and therefore is more time consuming and expensive to bottle. Plus, packaging costs add up as well.

As a consumer, I would LOVE to be able to buy pinot noir for under $20. As a producer, I can’t imagine how it could be done.

Cheers,

Andrew Weber

Thanks for the input Andrew. I understand the cost of French barrels but who needs 100% new French oak? Used barrels, culled lots, less expensive glass and alternative enclosures can keep costs down. Adam Lee and Russ Raney seem to know how to hit line drives with Pinot’s under $20 retail. There are a handful of other producers that pull this trick off quite well and those are the wineries I support in my BTG program. It doesn’t make sense to me why so many other producers cannot or refuse to do the same. As far as packaging costs, alternative packaging is available. I have poured Evesham Wood in BIB’s and am eagerly awaiting this years release. Tetra pac’s are another option. For me, a paradigm shift needs to occur. Wine doesn’t have to come in a glass bottle with a natural cork with some fancy, overpriced label. It needs to taste and smell like the variety. Hell, I’ve even poured Greenstone Point from New Zealand. My wholesale cost is $84/case and outdrinks most other Pinot’s under $200. If they can grow it, ferment it, package it, ship it and make it tast like Pinot for $7/btle whsle, why can’t domestic producers do the same? Just my $.02

As demonstrated with bludgeon-like precision the last couple of vintages, with the coastal California Pinot regions producing closer to a non-economic ton an acre in very many cases, given the vagaries of weather don’t forget to factor in Mother Nature’s unpredictable whims.

Plus this economic ride may have just begun. The markets are all hoping there isn’t a commercial real estate meltdown like we saw with the residential market. But the problem is so many restaurants and retailers and other businesses are gonna go under with the slow economy and the higher rents that were imposed to amortize commercial real estate debt. Its gonna hurt to have a commercial real estate debt meltdown, but if it doesn’t happen, many many small businesses are gonna go under because of rent and other higher costs. This economy is gonna drag out without a recovery?

I foresee a lot of pinot being grafted to higher yielding varieties that can be produced at lower cost; and the market for high quality Pinot Noir shrinking dramatically.

I can’t help but dig up old prediction threads like this. I’ll tell you what happened to pinot noir from 2010 to 2020: good producers kept focusing on making it better and more age worthy, and Meiomi bought the rest of the grapes and produced mass market pinot in the $20 range.