In other words, a watered-down but priced-up version of bum juice. Another way by which that generation is getting the short end of the stick.
Yes. That is how I convinced Steve not to buy Knight. GETCO was smarting from that PE bid.
I did a spit take when I read that Chuck Wagner accused Beckstoffer of doing things for personal financial gain.
The article notes the heavy uses of fertilizer on the lands he owns. It’s not at all clear to me how interested he is in sustainability - what’s clear is he’s interested in his business model.
I ve been in the wine biz for a long time and all along people have been predicting the demise of the Napa Valley. Has n’t happened…yet!
There are a couple of things in the article that bother me.
One is the idea that Andy is responsible for its transformation into an all Bordeaux variety region. There is used to be a Napa Coop that bought all the grapes nobody wanted them and then bulked the wine out to people like Gallo. Gallo stopped buying from them and the Co Op stopped buying grapes like early burgundy,etc. Of course, as growers replanted what they they replant with?? Something people wanted and would pay good money for, like Cab and Merlot. Even Zin is almost finished there. If you want to make zin, you d better own your own vineyard. We end up in a bad place this way, but let’s not blame Andy. Lots of people went along with his ideas.
The other is the idea that banning winery weddings etc is a bad idea. I think you end up with a vinous version of Fisherman s Wharf when everybody starts hosting weddings and parties.
Of course, a lot of people who supported the ban probably lived next door to a winery. Before Covid hit, you couldn’t cross Hiway 29 on a weekend. This reminds me of a story. A guy I met grew up with Mike Martini. Grandpa Louis would drive Mike and him to the malt shop in St Helena and drive down the middle of the road…why not…there weren t Many other cars around.
75% a wine labelled Napa Valley has to come from the Napa? Most wine regions in Europe hold to 100%. To Burgundians this seems like a great idea. The tanker trucks don’t have to deliver in the middle of the night! They can come when people are watching.
Well, he is partially responsible for the rise in prices. The more he is able to treat his vineyards as prestigious and sell them for more money, the more the winemakers charge. It’s a natural outcome.
I agree, millennials won’t pay those prices, and again, it’s not a story that appeals to them. Other than tech bros, I’m not sure which of them is dying to take a helicopter to Screagle. I’m on the edge of the millennial divide (I’m a 79), and I’m certainly a yuppie, and that sort of thing doesn’t appeal overmuch to me either.
T Gigante:
I admit to being out of touch on the selzer water and vodka issue. I just drink the vodka straight from the half pint.
I think what happened is that Andy and a few other growers preached the gospel of making a minimum amount of money per acre.
When this worked out, everything took off.
In the 70s I worked in retail. We stored our wine at a group warehouse, where wineries stored their wine prior to delivery. The guy who ran it had been an important wine merchant.
I asked him why he jumped ship just as things were getting good. Mel, he said, when the price of 1966 second growths hit $36 a case, prices were just too much for me. So I started the warehouse.
When I see people talking about $25,000 a ton grapes I feel the same way.
The article also implied that Andy owned all of To Kalon…no mention of Mondavi.
Yes to me this was the central hypocrisy of his position. You can’t say you want land protected in perpetuity but have your agricultural practices be deleterious and unsustainable. He seems completely and nakedly focused on maximizing yield for short term gain. No idea how winemakers can view that product as of the highest quality other than they don’t really care because they will sell bottles anyway.
And this dude doesn’t even drink the wines? I really do hope my generation destroys the market for this stuff.
Round-up to the next integer is how to profit. Before the health department and then the virus shut down our shop, (almost) 75% of our dumpling meat was meat. ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
I think it’s more that he likes the current business model and wants it protected, not that he’s a pure strip miner. But his view of sustainability is certainly different from mine - he sees it from the perspective of a corporate farmer
I am a millennial who has no issue paying up for the good stuff. I have told all my millennial friends who have no issue paying up for the good stuff that Napa represents one of the worst wine values on the planet, no thanks to soulless businessmen like Andy. The fertilizer thing makes me barf. Also if he thinks millennials are especially hung up on authenticity, just wait till the zoomers take center stage…
The underlying point is that Andy and his ilk are all racing to the bottom to extract maximum profit from Napa, while actively seeking to deny others the ability to do so, because it might hinder Andy in his own exploitation. Move, countermove, and so on. Your objection to winery weddings may be aesthetic; I suspect his is commercial
Well said
Totally agree - and I guess my view is just that over the course of a few decades that kind of farming practice will lead to the vineyards being stripped of their vivacity. He’s doing enough to keep em producing for now but what does that look like in 30-50 years?
I was going to say that we drink with a number of Millenials (like Yao) who could afford these wines, but they seem to be drinking European wines instead.
Sounds similar to me too. At 1433 bottles, I’m 64% France, 11.4% German, 9.5% Oregon, 6.7% Italy, 5% California–with an expectation that California will shrink in percentage. Bedrock, Cimarossa, and Myriad are the only lists I’m on. I’d be interested to hear if people buying Dr. Crane are planning to continue after this article?
As a fellow Millennium, I think Napa is extremely unpopular amongst my cohort because a) the perception of the people who consume it, fairly or no, of being boring steakhouse-goer, expense account types who don’t know any better and are more interested in the label than what’s in the bottle b) the extremely uninteresting “stories” behind most of the producers; Man Who Gets Rich in Other Career Buys Winery or Vineyard and Sells Wine For Lots of Money ain’t exactly riveting and c) the baseline price of admission. It’s mostly the latter, I think, that keeps us from having any kind of connection with the area and the perception that because of land prices and the culture of the Valley, there’s simply no room for scrappy upstarts to go against the grain and make singular, sincere wines that speak of place and have their own voice. From the outside, it mostly seems to be personalities out to capitalize on what they’re producing for either profit or prestige, even if Burgundy vignerons aren’t exactly giving it away for free.
As an aside, I thought this piece was JUST enough of the ol’ journalism adage of “just let them talk and bury themselves” without tipping the writer’s hand one way or the other - a difficult tightrope to walk.
I don’t recall Andy being a force on the no on weddings. As I recall, it was non wine people who pushed that idea. They also passed an ordinance that says any winery party can’t go beyond 10 pm, must have a limited number of guests, etc. People just wanted to be able to sleep at night and not get overwhelmed by traffic etc. A lot of things were done in reaction to Daryl Sattui’s deli and winery operation. Half the vintners wanted to imitate him and half saw where it would all end. Luck for Dario/Daryl he was grandfathered in.
Of course, from the POV of people like Andy, they want the Napa to attract the right kind of people, people who will spend their time buying expensive wine, eating at expensive restaurants etc. A friend of mine got a job to get more rich people to visit during the slow season
At one point in time a winery could make a Napa Cab with 26% Napa cab, 25% Lodi Cab, 25% Napa whatever and the rest from California…and the winery could call it Napa Cab.
It was felt this diminished the reputation of Napa so the law was changed. As far as I can tell, it didn’t hurt.
I’ve always wondered why Mondavi doesn’t sell To Kalon grapes.
Has he met his own son??
Entertaining article.
I truly do not know enough about Napa economics to know how everything gets sorted out and can only extrapolate via personal preference. I know Berserkers are not typical people, but I’m 40, and while dozens of my friends would tell you they loooove wine, how many are into wine? Like, they have wine opinions and regularly spend more than $20 per bottle?
Maybe 3 people I can think of.
I love almost all wine and would gladly slurp down a good Napa cab almost any day of the week, but I think I drink like a king at <$40 a bottle and literally can’t think of anyone I know who fetishizes high-end Napa. Obviously these people and restaurants are out there, but I have just never really seen it in real life.