Of anyone could share the link I’d appreciate it. Very LONG but I’m an old retired guy, so I read the whole thing. Basically too many luxury brands making $100-$200 bottles chasing less and less customers. But it’s very in depth and does offer some insights and options for the future.
I think it’s free, was linked from the Wine Business:
It’s a really long article but most of the points are solid. They are also not novel. Alas, I find the article a bit self-serving. Ted Hall was a McKinsey guy who helped force the Mondavi’s out of Mondavi, was the prime backer of the regulation disallowing anyone owning less than 40 acres from being allowed to build a winery (which helped large entities like himself), bought Stony Hill and could not make that work, selling to Gaylon Lawrence after just a handful of years, and tbh, I’ve seen his own wines being discounted to $9 at close-out stores in the valley. So although he makes some good points, he is not the person I wish to see leading the future here. Private equity and consultant firms has done enough damage to this valley already. We need less of their ideas, not more. I do like Farmstead, though.
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Very good article worth a read
The use of stock photos is kind of hilarious though…
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Will people really replant with something other than Cabernet? For decades some amazing Petite Sirah was grown there, and was probably a key ingredient in early Cabs, before megapurple came along.
As the climate changes I could see warm weather options like Grenache performing well. I wasn’t that shocked to hear that between 100 and 170 wineries are operating at break even or a loss. My wife told recently that the A&W burger joint that was there for 60 years, has closed down. Wonder what luxury business will take its place.
I’d also say this. As warehouses run out of room its going to be a buyers for collectors in the next couple of years.
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This article is being discussed in another thread:
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There’s no citation or explanation of that analysis in the original article. More likely, whichever AI was used to write the article just hallucinated that factoid into existence.
Maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. Maybe the actual number is more, or maybe it’s less. We won’t know, because it’s AI slop.
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Thank you for sharing the article. Great perspective on the current state of wine in Napa. Maybe not unique or original, but nice overview and info.
Whether it’s true or not, there appear to be a lot of wineries out there that can handle being at breakeven or a loss for a long time based on their personal wealth . . .
Cheers
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I’m no economist, but i do understand supply and demand.
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more like this.
As a former Stony Hill mailing list buyer when Stony Hill was Stony Hill, Ted Hall and the rest of his PE ilk can piss up a rope.
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PE ruins everything.
It’s also potentially a death sentence - look at survival rates of companies that were bought out by PE or leveraged - they have an alarmingly high bankruptcy rate.
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+1 Methusaleh
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Came upon other essays by Mr Hall. Apologies if this is posted elsewhere
fwiw
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ted hall. lolz
I read it on Substack, but hesitated to post it. There was one aha moment in the article I read that really stuck with me. He spoke of there being a difference between wine sold, and wine consumed. That really hit home for me. Myself and so many of my friends as well as many here spent a lot of time in the last decade or so buying Wine to fill a cellar. Lots of wine was sold that way rather than being sold specifically to drink. There are thousands of wine cellars across America filled with hundreds of bottles of expensive Napa Cabernet that are unlikely to be consumed by present owners.
Much of the supply was created by the system to fill that perceived demand which no longer exists at a level anything close to what it was
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I’m kind of out on spending $100-$250 per in order to satisfy the pro forma of some tech bro’s or finance bro’s vanity project.
Not that I haven’t had some great juice in that price range, notably Janzen To Kalon, Herold Coombesville and Tate Howell Mountain, but most of the stuff is much of a muchness IME, though objectively very good muchness.
The values are far superior in Bordeaux, and honesty there’s some decent daily drinkers in the $20-$60 range from Washington, Paso and elsewhere that offer more variety of style.
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It’s a lot easier to make good wine than to sell it.
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