Rich People Are Ruining Wine …and Napa Valley is forever changing as a result (The Atlantic)

WINE TALK
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Bad examples from a price perspective. Just saying LOL. Oh and Ridge isn’t in Napa (for the most part). But I get your point…as I insinuated there are always exceptions.

And no I understand change happens and welcome it to a degree. But what has happened in Napa is exactly what I said. Winery A, B, C and D charge “X” amount and I, winery E, have to also charge that or people will think my wine isn’t as good. That viscous cycle I mentioned. Spurred by people like Costa Brown who’s sole function was to build a brand, flip it for a massive profit and go on to something else. But I guess that change is good for the Valley. The question is, how long can Napa sustain the ever increasing prices largely due to inflated land costs people at buying? I don’t know but would be curious to hear others thoughts.

42

My last tasting at Heitz was free. Actually all of my tastings at Heitz were free. Pretty sure everyone can say that and I’m also pretty sure most people think Heitz makes some great wine.

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Leaving aside the unfortunate matter of potential deforestation which I do find generally painful, your take is pretty much the same as mine when it comes to the wine markets.

A few years ago, I was asked to do an unusual cellar appraisal. It was a cellar of all high end California wine (a few old world wines- but virtually all CA) that was being sold as part of the sale of a very expensive home.

I completed the appraisal with all the necessary support, but what astonished me was how many wines there were I had never heard of- all tiny boutique CA wines- that are only just recently starting to have any kind of secondary auction or resale data. Most of them were quite valuable- we are talking SQN prices- very rare, got very high scores from a predictable slate of critics (not necessarily Parker) and were also wines I have never seen in my life.

When you consider the relative price increases of things like Dunn, Corison and Diamond Creek- to name just a few- as compared to some of the traditional and solid insider favorites in Bordeaux or Burgundy, I think Napa at this point has a great many relative values at the top end. And I think a lot of that must be driven by the evolution of this new micro-market catering specifically to collectors (and to be fair- also some who like those kinds of wines.)

I have not spent time over the years in Napa- but what is being described sounds a lot like what has happened to Austin, TX since I was a student there (and part of what prompted me to move to Dallas a few years ago.) At the end of the day, the change comes to some places. It is not about the uber-rich, they merely have the money to be major players in it. But sometimes a place that is paradise to many long time residents becomes paradise to a lot of other people too.

If you ever lived in Austin prior to 1995 and were to drive through downtown, or down South Lamar or South Congress right now, you would be sick to your stomach at all the change.

However, it is important to note that Austin specifically rezoned these high traffic areas for higher population density because they would be easier routes for the eventual construction of better mass transit- PLUS it preserved the neighborhoods by taking pressure off advocacy for rezoning so that one homestead could be turned into 3-4 townhouses.

Drive down South Lamar or South Congress, turn off the road and go 2-3 blocks, and you will be in familiar territory again. There will be some new bigger houses, and every house is a lot more expensive- but the general character of Austin is still preserved. Most of the stores and hobby businesses I know and love from my college and early professional days in Austin are still there- they just mostly moved or happened to be in areas that have not been redeveloped to hell.

I do not know how that balance is being achieved in Napa, but my point is that big change is a reality when an area becomes a hot commodity. But even so, much of the good still remains- even if you have to go looking for it.

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44

A relevant article just showed up on the WS site.

Seems to barely scratch the surface of an extremely complicated issue, that is just a local example of an interplay between long time residents/newcomers, rich/not-so-rich, and dozens of other bifurcations that can come into play with land use and cultural changes. For contrast, I was also reading today about borderline violent anti-gentrification demonstrations in LA. The bad guys in that drama are the hipsters, gallery owners, and craft breweries who are deemed to constitute the avant-guard in the takeover by rich whites.

Are white hipsters hijacking an anti-gentrification fight in Los Angeles? | Los Angeles | The Guardian.

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Very thoughtful comments. The level of discourse in this thread has been very heartening — 99.9% of the time on the Internet, a topic like this just becomes the shouting of talking points back and forth.

I graduated UT in 94, and I think your description of Austin is quite accurate. It’s changed a ton, mostly as a victim of its own desirability as a place to live and work, yet it still has its charms if you know where to find them.

This is a very mobile society today. A place becomes popular in some way (Bend and Park City as places for rich Californians to own vacation homes, Austin for tech industry and cool city life, Brooklyn for hipsters, Napa to live the dream of grand vineyard estate living, etc.), and people move there quickly, which results in the place changing.

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Yeah, those rich millenials are the worst [soap.gif]


[worship.gif]

I do hope that was intentional.

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[grin.gif]

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I think that’s unfair. I knew those guys before they started getting big scores from Laube. Of course they wanted to build a brand, make good wine, and hopefully make a living off it. They weren’t the ones who gave out high scores, or forced customers to buy up everything they made, or even convinced millionaire investors to buy them up - multiple times. It just happened, and most of us would have cashed out exactly as they did. And, while that was happening for them, a hundred other brands came and went, not able to survive the very difficult wine business.

There is plenty of truth to the “rich people are spoiling…” whatever. That’s just life. For those of us who aren’t rich :wink:

49

One interesting factoid in the WS article,

“One of the most surprising facts about Napa is that less than 10 percent of its 504,450 acres are planted to vineyards.”

FYI: In Sonoma it’s 6% .

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Must be nice. [grin.gif]

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This might sound crazy but I think rich/not rich and expensive/not expensive is a false & unhelpful dichotomy

I recently bought a home in SF but I’m all for making housing more accessible + increasing the density of the city. My holding period is 20-30+ years and really don’t care about my property values. I just want to live in a vibrant and interesting city

I do drink quite expensive wine here and there, but it does a certain job for me. There are other jobs that comparatively very affordable wines do well for me. As above, my point is that price is almost entirely besides the point. I care more about having the appropriate wine for the type of experience I’m trying to have

As a millennial, I think this is where my generation is headed - the slow but sure decoupling of money/prices from status. Bound up in all this is the related idea that quality & authenticity of experience is superior & preferable

So the idea that wine and Napa Valley can be ‘ruined’ doesn’t really parse for me. The trees though do matter; I would like to have more trees if possible

champagne.gif

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I don’t believe any of the Napa oaks are old growth. They may be several hundred years old, but they are not original plantings.

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Another article on the topic

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Almost everyone on this board is rich. The difference is how rich. Here's the Average Net Worth of Americans at Every Age

55

Levi Dalton just released an interview with James Conway on his “I’ll Drink to That!” podcast. It’s a really good listen.

http://illdrinktothatpod.libsyn.com/rss

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I feel like many people are missing the point of the article. It’s two pronged, first, this article is saying that owning a Napa vineyard and winery is turning into a Veblen good; not owning bottles of wine from Napa. This and other developmental pressures are forever changing the ecology and environment of Napa County through development and deforestation. If you saw Blood into Wine it’s what people assumed Maynard James Keenan was doing originally and were pleasantly surprised that he actually cared for the ecology and wanted to be a good vintner. They use Trump as a example. Trump doesn’t drink any alcohol (including wine) and bought a vineyard because it was a status symbol.

57

I moved to California in 1984 to be an intern. I rented the small room from a guy in Noe Valley who had a bumper sticker that said welcome to California, now go home. He was convinced that the California he grew up in in the 60s had been ruined by people who had moved in over the preceding 20 years. I have many older patients who have lived here since World War II. They are convinced that California was ruined by the hippies who moved here in the 60s. My wife moved to Sebastopol from Detroit in 1982. She is convinced that Sonoma County has been ruined by people who moved just after her. It is a great California tradition to lament how the changes brought on by new immigrants have ruined the Paradise that they knew. The current vogue is to blame the rich especially the tech industry rich. They will soon settle in and start hating the next wave. I think the Oakies who moved here to find paradise during the dust bowl are to blame. Or maybe it was the Spanish missionaries who are the root of the problem. I hear it was great here when it was just Miwocks and grizzly bears.

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58

i was thinking this too. it looked like the article was about the vineyard owners, not the people buying.

59

Cut down the damn oak trees. Oak trees grow everywhere. Land that can grow superb Cabernet can only be found in a handful of places in the world.

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Finally read the article. The author is clearly trolling, nobody can be stupid enough to write this:

“Hall’s new project in Napa would partially deforest a 2,300-acre untrammeled swath of land.* This destruction wouldn’t be for something useful like growing food, but rather for yet more derivative wine beyond the financial reach of most people.”

The last thing Americans need is more food and the last thing California needs is more water-sucking acres put to use growing food instead of wine.

(To be fair, Hall wine is awful. Maybe give the land to Mike Smith?)