Less Napa, more Bordeaux. That’s my mentality with escalating Napa pricing although with wine tariffs I’ll just pause buying in volume from overseas and cherry pick what I want as I drink down some of my bloated cellar.
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Yeah, I’m passing completely on the 2022s (after a couple unwise purchases). Had enough to know it’s definitely not for me. Maybe I get dropped from a few lists and have to pay 20% more on the open market in 23. Better than having bottles in a full cellar that I don’t want to drink.
You’re asking the wrong guy Alan.
There’s a difference? 
Agree with this. On top of that I wonder what defines a bad vintage and who gets to define it? Does it get defined before people have a chance to taste the wine?
Wineries make the pricing decisions.
I make the purchasing decisions.
Simple, dimple.
IME, wineries tend not to lower prices in lesser vintages. If they don’t sell through, they can bulk out the wine and it ends up being sold incognito at discounted prices, à la CamX.
I pass on hostage wines that I don’t think are worth it and have dropped off lists for that reason.
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What makes their economic model so different?
If it’s Andy Beckstoffer pricing fruit at crazy levels, then perhaps finding other fruit at a more reasonable price would be the correct choice. But at $3500/case, that’s close to $180,000 per ton realized. Even at 35 cases per ton, using no press wine, it’s $120,000. Beyond the fruit costs, I’m guessing the cost of operations is higher, but how much of that is self inflicted?
I’d love to understand what has changed over the past 3 decades to where $60/bottle became $300. Honest question, I’m not being snarky here. The early 90s Napa wines were outstanding. Maybe not 100 point wines but probably more in my wheelhouse regardless. I’m just surprised that there isn’t more wiggle room between Napa first growths (McDonald, etc.), Second Growths, and a place where really good wines can be $100-150 and people can still stay in business.
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I’d argue it was a change in the nature of wealth in the US with the 0.1%, and how luxury goods houses (the true high end, like Hermes, not that step down group of attainable luxury) stepped up to satisfy them. You’ve seen a similar inflation for those goods, because there’s a cohort that is willing to pay that. To me, this is no different.
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My uneducated guess is greed as neighboring wineries got high scores and raised pricing so did most. They pressed the limits on pricing and now can’t go back down in cost for fear of how that looks to customers.
I also think there is a Bay Area wealth bubble that helps keep Napa going.
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Yeah, I’ve been shopping at Hermes for close to 20 years so I’m very familiar with their luxury pricing model. It’s just something you come to terms with if you want to shop there. However, I recently went back into the flagship store in Paris after not being in a store for a few years and was truly shocked with the prices. Everything was up 3-6x from the already high prices that I had been accustomed to seeing to the point that I was like there’s literally nothing in this store that I would buy at these prices.
That’s the same situation with how the $60 Napa wine has become $300.
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But many European wines fluctuate their prices based on the quality of the vintage, or perceived quality of their wine in that vintage.
In general, higher fixed costs like real estate, insurance, etc plus higher wages. Making matters worse, Napa also has too many producers wanting to play in the luxury pool and too many overpaid acquisitions that have driven prices further up. I have to believe that the bubble will eventually burst on the latter two points and hopefully have a positive trickle down effect for those playing in the $50-150 range.
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This is such an interesting question - and one that is not that easy to answer. Part of it comes down to how desirable your product is in the first place; part of it comes down to your ‘regular’ pricing . . .
Are folks saying that MacDonald, Beta, or ‘name the FOMO producer right now’ did not lower the price on a so called ‘lesser vintage’, you would not be purchasing? No - that’s not what it appears folks are saying.
So much of this comes down to support and trust - do you trust that a producer who you’ve enjoyed in the past will do their best to produce a wine that is as good as they can in ANY vintage? Or do you ‘cherry pick’ and only purchase wines in vintages that someone has anointed as the ‘best ever’?
I know many here have pointed out the reality of retail - the consumer is king and can choose to support or not . . . and that is certainly fair . . . but where is the trust?
Cheers
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Too many variables to dial into all of this. When X winery prices a cab at $400+ on release and their prior vintages are available at auction for half or less; it tells me that I shouldn’t be buying the new releases and if I want the wine buy it at auction.
There has to be a threshold where we as buyers make the decision that we are no longer comfortable spending above a price per bottle. For many, the $100 per bottle price point is too high. Napa has done a great job getting their customers conditioned to expensive bottles of wine. $200 is now the new $100 and soon it will be $300 if its not already. Those prices IMO escalated too high, too quickly.
I bought Scarecrow previously for around 5 vintages and when the price went from $500, which in reality is more than I am willing to pay today but paid then; to $600 per bottle I was easily out. Can’t justify paying more than I could get Margaux, Haut Brion, Mouton, etc for if I was really going to spend that kind of money.
I was buying Spottswoode in the high $100s 10 years ago and now they are in the high $200s. I can go buy BDX so much cheaper than this high $200 per bottle price point that it doesn’t make sense for me to chase bottles that I would cellar 10+ years before touching. There is plenty of Spottswoode available at auction in the $100-$200 range that is ready to drink now.
Beta is $95 a bottle, an absolute steal considering where many bottles in Napa are priced. I max buy everything he makes, including the magnums.
MacDonald is fictional to attain for most of us but at $225 I am sure I would be a buyer. They sell 3 packs only and have no other wines to buy.
Jasud at $195 could be a tough sale for people who haven’t got to taste it yet, however I’ve been on the mountain with Ketan 4 years in a row now tasting the different vintages and enjoy the wine. I will go out on a limb and say this wine will be one of the greats once it gets more time. I will buy the wine from him for as long as I can afford to and also as long as it makes sense to still buy new release cabernet before I have to realize Father Time won’t allow me to drink them in the window I prefer.
There are plenty of other examples in Napa with escalating costs and unless I have a reason to continue buying, whether that be loyalty to the winery, friendships, benefits of being a buyer to get free tasting or to winery events; I don’t see myself chasing expensive bottles. There needs to be a price reset and this is an uncomfortable thing to state but there are dark clouds over the industry and expensive bottles are easy for wine buyers to stop buying. We can find less expensive wines…I still won’t unmute that CamX thread though!
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Wineries are going to charge what consumers are willing to pay.
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If you don’t like the vintage/prices, don’t buy the wine.
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There are rarely bad vintages anymore. Look at what was said about 2011 and now they are
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Good winemakers don’t make bad wine
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Napa isn’t Bordeaux- for the better wineries there is so much DTC which changes the dynamic completely - lesser vintages than don’t sell out get dumped at lower prices to distributors. And there is always the concern by consumers that not buying an “off vintage” will make make them lose out on the next great vintage. Plus the weather is better in California - very few truly bad vintages.
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I think one has to divide the market for Napa wines into two buckets - wines purchased from stores at retail and wines purchased from a mailing list.
For wines purchased at retail, generally, costs have nothing to do with prices (other than of course if a winery cannot sell wines for a profit, they will eventually go out of business). Retail stores will either buy the wines or not and their customers will buy the wines or not, so eventually, the market determines the price for the wines. Sooner or later, the price for the better vintages will go up and the price for lesser vintages go down.
For wines bought every year from a mailing list it seems like a different dynamic. Customers tend to buy wines every year (in many cases they get cut off if they don’t do so). So, if you want the wines in good years, you have to buy the wines in bad years. Since people likely are paying above “market” in bad years, it kind of would stink for the winery to charge more for the wines in good years (other than kind of cost-based increases that often happen from years to years). Seems like a very different market dynamic to me. Kind of a bargain where the customer agrees to buy in bad years and the winery agrees to not jack up the price in good years. But, that all depends on how much you want the wines. If you are on a mailing list and the winery jacks up the price in good years but does not lower the price in bad years, would you leave the mailing list (and does this ever really happen)???
This is the truest statement in the entire thread. 
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For some grape varieties, lesser vintages are better. I gravitate towards lesser vintages of Petite Sirah, because they typically balance fruit and tannins better than more powerful vintages.
I look at the pricing issue a little differently, knowing that Napa will never adjust pricing like Bordeaux. Look at 2011 - everybody said bad vintage, demand dropped, and wineries/stores had inventory to move when 2012 came around. As a result, a lot of deals were to be had. One of my best was getting a case of 2011 Cimarossa for $40/bottle. So, in a way, net pricing did go down for the “lesser” vintage, just not out of the gate.
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