To me, this whole thing is free markets in action. If the wine price is too high, don’t buy it. If they don’t sell it, the price will come down.
A little off subject, but we first went to Napa in the early 1990’s. Had lunch at Rita’s Cantina in what was downtown St Helena and were afraid to go any further north because it was just a gravel road. Now Napa is Disneyland for adults. Ok for some but I avoid it, maybe I’m just getting too old (64 now). Again, free markets in action. I prefer the Sonoma valley with an occasional day trip to visit some Napa Valley favorites.
It’s not an age thing. I’ve been to up to Napa and Sonoma about a dozen times (in-laws live in SF). I much prefer Sonoma, but go into Napa for specific producers who tend not to be off of Highway 29. Visiting Ketan Mody and Stony Hill were fun excursions with the Subaru.
In the late 60’s early 70’s one could from Forestville up over the hill into Calistoga and then south into St Helena and the roads were paved with asphalt just as they are now. Not sure where you came up with gravel roads north of St Helena in the 90’s.
If one person could be responsible for pushing Napa cab prices to Bdx first growth levels, it’s him. Everyone who thinks that’s a good thing should be in his camp.
Would have been a good question for the Mike Smith or TRB Zoom get togethers: what it’s like to work with Beckstoffer and do they feel partially responsible for driving up the price of Napa wine by buying his grapes for some of their wines.
Count me in with the millinials. I quit caring about Napa wines around 2000. It was becoming too expensive(wines I bought for $35-50 were suddenly $100 with no qualitative difference) and mostly the wines were getting too big for my personal preferences.
College pricing is borderline financial foolishness for many of the smart choices in degrees, and downright stupidity for most liberal arts degrees. It’s not ok at all.
And we have a massive issue with housing in Oregon because inflated housing, and rental,
costs have made it extremely challenging for many people with jobs to afford a place to live. It’s a nightmare for younger kids in our rural town because so many of the houses are being bought by non-residents and turned into VRBO.
So, from a societal standpoint, both of those examples are pretty poor choices.
This. College these days (and graduate or professional schools) are a mortgage with a higher interest rate. And the older generations complain that we aren’t buying houses, let alone overpriced wine, with as much enthusiasm.
Mike actually discussed fruit pricing during the Zoom and said he doesn’t think it is overpriced. He said he’s been buying Dr Crane fruit from Andy longer than anyone else and that the consistently high quality of the fruit combined with the fact that he like Andy makes it a non-issue.
How are people thinking this article isn’t a great and flattering profile of Andy? I like him and his fruit even more after reading this article. He grows/owns amazing fruit and is a visionary and savvy businessperson. It took a lot of vision, courage, and persistence to get where he is. I also love how he it determined to keep his land undeveloped beyond farm land. Good for him.
As someone who has read James Conway’s histories of Napa, and was somewhat familiar with Beckstoffer from those (but the memory was a little hazy), all I know is if I see Beckstoffer on a label it’s almost certainly overpriced.
There are people who beleive that a $20 Napa Valley Cab made of declassified fruit (with mix from Lake Country) is overpriced.
It costs $100 a night to stay at Motel 6 in Napa.
There are enough rich kids to support the current tourism business. Increasing capacity would require more workers and infrastruture (housing/hotel/parking/road), and can potentially lower the unit price and quality of experience.
Sonoma is easier to travel. But really it’s not Napa Valley. It just doesn’t feel the same driving on HWY29/Silverado Trail vs on 101/121/116/West Side Road.
One hour south-west you’re looking at San Francisco, then the Silicon Valley. It’s probably more profitable to grow houses and office buildings than grapes in Napa.
I cannot afford his bottles, but I am convinced that Napa has to be a luxury brand to be a successful limited-supply and high-unit-cost wine tourism destination. Luckily I am only 90 minutes away. I visit Napa in the winter, dine in the nice restaurants, then I drive home, drink Smith-Madrone.
![[shrug.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/48636ebda2a440a43ad8d24c83be20ac20c53420.gif "shrug"){kind=small}
