I really don’t want to get into the name of the specific winery (PM me if you are so curious you can’t stand it) , but I think their situation is worth discussing. I got an email today from a mid $100s priced California Cab producer who uses a very well-regarded winemaker. AG decided the wines are about 5-8 points less well-made than old RP used to think. Can a wine sell for 150 bucks with an 87 score? I am presuming that it can’t. Then what does the producer do with that juice? And what do you do as a matter of survival to save the business? Do you have to re-brand? I don’t think this is really a question about WA critics specifically but more generally about any wine getting significantly downgraded by any critic. At a 3 digit price point, how can a producer avoid being at the mercy of the critics?
Make better wine?
I guess I am really wondering how much the buying public is aware of critics opinions. Can an established brand sell through a mediocre review? I may have just answered my own question. I was looking at Montelena Estate Cab. In the mid 90s it was very well regarded by Spectator. In 2001-2004 it scored poorly (a 69 and a 72 in there!) and it appears they have never asked WS to taste it again. So, as long as the game works, you play and when it doesn’t you just opt out. I guess if they survived a 69, anybody can survive anything.
Or can a winery sell a 93 point wine for $150, I don’t think so either. Parker spent about 20 years convincing us that he possesed the golden palate and unwavering honesty. For the most part he, alone, has driven the market. Not just Bordeaux, and California Cabs, but Rhone, North and South, Burgundy (although less so lately), and California Pinot Noir (e.g. Marcassin 2x better than Rhys? It is by selling prices). In his absence, examples of a specific producer’s wine, or a specific vintage of one wine over another ('90 Beauséjour) that sells for mutiples over a similar appellation wine will be less common.
I received the same email. I have to imagine that this will make it extraordinarily difficult to sell the wine at that price (let’s be honest, with that score it would be difficult to sell at half the release price). I would have to think that going forward the solution will be to not have AG review the wine. I am almost surprised that they choose not to address the issue. It doesn’t strike me as a good plan to hope buyers don’t see/don’t care about the WA score at that price point.
Perhaps they read some of the many threads about how we trust our palate and don’t care about scores…??
Insert joke here. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
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Really, this. You’ll lose the points whores from your list, but if people have bought and liked your wine and feel it’s worth the price they’ll continue to buy. The hard part for wineries now is the transition. Would AG have scored the past vintages the same? If so, then people should buy in confidence. If not, and the quality really is off significantly then guess what? Your wine isn’t worth $100. You can complain about the unfairness of it or you can drop the price to the list. What’s that? You built your business model around $100/bottle and can’t drop price? Oops…
In 1993 the Spectator famously gave most of Giacosa’s then current line up scores in the SEVENTIES. They sold through in no time…
I think that the answer is, you change distribution methods. Instead of marketing and selling to mailing list customers primarily, you move primarily to the three tier system and have wholesalers and distributors do the heavy lifting for you.
And to some extent the earlier poster is correct in presuming that 95% (maybe more like 99%) of the wine buying public doesn’t know critics or scores, just reputation…which is marketing. After all, how do you think Silver Oak, Opus One and Silverado all continue to move through steakhouses across our nation at prices that defy logic?
It didn’t really impact my buying decision as I am not a big fan of the style. But even assuming everyone in those threads doesn’t consider scores at all (which I find doubtful), I think that represents a small percentage of buyers. Moreover, even if you don’t care about scores in the least, you also have to not care about prices as the wine clearly is going to be available in the secondary market for a lot less than release (it hit retail channels in past years). I am not in the business but this seems like it has to be a hard thing to survive. I am not sure the Montelena low scores are a great comparison given that winery’s long history.
A NEW winery can’t survive an 87-point score. I think an established brand clearly can with the right track record and other marketing tools in place. It will hurt more the less well-established and less well-marketed and managed the brand is, but as has been pointed out here already, there are several brands with spotty score history that still seem to do fine. I think it depends a lot on the specific brand, actually.
If a winery makes great wine and a critic simply doesn’t like the style and doles out lower scores, the winery should be fine. The problems in Napa are many though:
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Many wines are far too expensive for the quality. Whether at 87 points or 92 points, $150 is really too much as a sustainable business model IMO. They might sell it today with the help of critic hype, but what about years down the road?
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The quality of many CA wines is overhyped. RP handed out huge scores like cornflakes. Lots of people bought the stuff assuming the quality was what RP deemed it to be and RP was infallible. The REAL quality of many wines is simply nowhere near as good as it could be. I know I sound like a broken record but if you haven’t already, try some of the Napa wines from the 70s and 80s. Those wines, for me, are still the benchmark of what CA is capable of.
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There is massive speculative investment in vineyard sites that are NOT ideal for growing truly great wine. Yet, the wines from these sites are marketed/hyped beyond belief to justify the hefty pricetags required to generate positive ROI on the investments.
If wineries could simply choose truly great fruit sources and make great wine from it, and still price their wines fairly (meaning they make a nice tidy profit, but don’t compete in the “whose is bigger championship”, then this whole issue would be a non-issue.
As an example (not from Napa), how concerned do you think Stephen Hansel is (from Walter Hansel) about scores? The guy makes great wine at very fair prices and he pretty much prices his wines the same every vintage. For him its a labor of love and he has a loyal following as a result. But since his wines are priced fair and square and because they are also available at retail, the trophy hunters aren’t out in full force to scoop up his stuff and flip it or brag about it…
How about lowering the price…
Tom
My question is how does a kilo of grapes end up costing $150?
Steffan, I have had the Walter Hansel chards often and think they are a very good value. I had no idea what they were rated, but took a look because of this discussion. Turns out they have been getting very good notices for a long time. Combine that with their pricing, and I can see why life is good.
Jeff. Even without the scores, these wines would sell. They are fantastic wines at insanely low prices relative to what everyone else is selling equivalent wine for these days. There have been years when certain wines were not reviewed or not highly scored, and I would still buy them because I liked the particular style of that bottling…
BTW the name of the winery must be Hourglass (deduced from browsing Antonio’s Napa scores).
Meh. You should be happy you don’t have to pay $150 for an “old-school Cab”, because Dunn, Montelena, Ridge, and the like are all under $100.
Many people have been predicting a possible shakeout for California cabernets for a number of years. This could be the beginning of the process. Many California wineries got a bit ahead of themselves with pricing in relation to quality. Wineries with virtually no track record were releasing their very first vintages at 3 digit plus prices. All the while, established “veteran” wineries were keeping their prices (relatively) low while watching consumers (new and old) fall all over themselves chasing the next “biggest” thing. Much of this was fueled by “Parkerization” of scores. I am a big fan of California cabernet and will remain one. However, the pricing and styles of certain wineries have combined to move me away. I will continue to buy cabernet and support my favorite wineries but have curtailed my buying considerably. At my age, my accountant and my actuarial table both agree that I have enough cabernet to last me a few lifetimes. I have never purchased wines based on scores…Parker or otherwise and I see no reason to start now.
Cheers!
Marshall ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}