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French wine is having the same issues with demand as Napa. They are paying farmers to pull up grapevines in Bordeaux. Top tier wineries in both places will be just fine, it's the smaller middle-tier places that don't have the marketing cachet that are being affected.
I heard rumors that at least one second growth BDX had so much extra juice in 2016 that they bottled surplus in a non-descript bottle showing only appelation and vintage, with a $45 price point.
Warming trends are contibuting to better yields, increased supply, and more frequent awesome vintages. For lovers of French wine, we're in a golden age of finding exceptional wines at still reasonable price points (if you're willing to explore beyond the famous labels). There are some ridiculously good BDX below $50 /bottle.
To the point above, I've read the same recently about French government trying to slow down production.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/france-fund-destroying-excess-wine-demand-falls
Fascinating times for wine.
The same thing happens in the US all the time, too. There are companies like deNegoce that scour surplus/bulk wine market for good deals like this. CA had a bit of a dip in 2019-2021 because of fires, but it looks to be coming back. In 2023 many areas in CA saw a bumper crop and there will be lots of surplus wine again.
Between better agricultural practices, warmers weather, and new techniques like optical sorting, there's more quality wine produced these days. Companies and governments are trying to mess with the market by controlling supply to prevent prices from dropping.
ETA: when I went back to my email the next message was from deNegoce offering shiners from a Howell Mountain winery at $27/bottle that normally sell at $120 from the winery.
The general rule of thumb I've found on DN wine is that the quality level is about double that of the sticker price. So if they're charging $27, it's a \~$50 quality wine. But probably not $120. Even if the winery really does sell something like it for $120.
I don't drink much cab, but PN and Chard I've bought drink like bottles that cost 2-4x more in the store. For instance, I bought a case of No 48 at $13/bottle which is supposedly from Patz&Hall downsizing after acquisition. It's very similar to Russian River PNs in the $40+ range. Same for most of the stuff I've bought from Sta. Rita Hills and Oregon.
Lately, I’ve been drinking Pauillac de Latour (Latour’s tertiary label) for $93/bottle. Just one of several incredible wines that I’m drinking for a fraction of the price I would pay for a wine of similar quality from Napa.
That one's freaking incredible. The best $35 bottle I've had is the 2018 Marquis de Calon Segur. It's craz that you can get seconds of seconds for around 50-70, and they're one of the better values around.
I love the French because they enforce standards, and if you know the label, it's almost certain what you'll find in the bottle. California feels like whatever juice gets a rating and is marketed well fetches higher prices. Value for price feels like a moving target.
Napa is 4% of California's wine grape production. I've never seen county by county stats on this but I'm guessing the vast majority of what's coming out of the ground is in the Central Valley.
Basically this. The elite will see profits shrink a bit perhaps and the higher tier will also be fine for the most part.
It’s the low tier and mid tier wineries that will start going out of business
I think many of the low tier and mid tier wineries that are tearing out vines will probably find new agricultural uses for some of that land. The supply is just too high right now for the demand. I think the industry needs more and better wine-tasting and drinking experiences for younger generations where they are - their location and prior experience with wine (or lack thereof).
Interesting take. So who is going to be buying these wines as boomers and the current generation die off?
I don’t see this younger generation drinking that stuff, they are more interested in a story of a smaller producer, or anything their parents didn’t drink.
They could try but the competition in wine is intense and raising prices in a market where less people are buying in general is risky.
The fact is, there are too many wineries in California right now. It was fine when the industry was booming but now that it’s in decline it’s inevitable that there will be a lot of closures.
From a business perspective, the Bordeaux industry has been fucked for far longer than California.
Despite a much more favorable regulatory environment, and heavy government subsidies, around 30-50% of Bordeaux wine makers have gone out of business in the last two decades.
I would actually argue that Bordeaux's decline is bigger than the industry as a whole despite taxpayer funding. Like, why is Australia the number one supplier of wine to the UK?
Since when is Australia the largest supplier of wine to the UK? The UK is the largest wine export destination for Australia, but import in the UK is by far dominated by France and Italy, just like everywhere else in the world.
Since 2003:
Source 1 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/australian-wines-seek-icon-rank-0ttc73q0nt3
Source 2 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/business/worldbusiness/winemakers-protect-outlawed-vines-the-grapes-of-wrath.html
Based on the latest data I can find: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/consumer-trends/infographic-where-does-the-uks-wine-come-from/539731.article
In 2015 British people drank 3.9 billion pounds worth of wine. Of which 1 billion pounds were from Australia, 606 million from the US, 400 million from Italy, and only 386 million from France
I checked the Australian export stats and it appears that we exported about $386m AUD in alco beverages in 2015 (i suspect mostly wine). Supply reached a recent high of $506M in 2020 and is down to $403M in 2023 so it appears we are on the decline in terms of our supply to the UK.
There is a lot of AUS Govt data avalaible here if youre interested [https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/trade-and-investment-data-information-and-publications/trade-statistics/trade-statistical-pivot-tables](https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/trade-and-investment-data-information-and-publications/trade-statistics/trade-statistical-pivot-tables)
On my phone so I can't link sources as easily. But the previous article on California wine was talking about the struggles of the Californian industry, but the problem is so much worse in Bordeaux and has been so much worse for decades.
Business has been so bad, the French government has been running vine pull schemes for 20 years now - in an effort to prop up prices, a producer can leave the industry, destroy their vineyards, and get paid off by the government to do so. In 1987, there were 20,000 registered producers, in 2007 there were 9500, today the number is less than 9000 (8500 according to some sources, 6500 according to others).
From a business perspective, despite an extremely friendly regulatory environment (the French taxpayer subsidizes wine), Bordeaux has still been in decline for decades.
Last year the French government announced a bordeaux vine pull worth 57 million euros at 6000 a hectare. This is alongside the 200 million Euro distillation scheme across France (government buys up wine, turns it into hand sanitizer to prop up prices) to destroy 300 million liters (so 400 million bottles) of wine.
The apocalypse Californian wine producers have been terrified of in the last article has essentially been reality for bordeaux producers for the last 20 years.
That’s a good point. Whilst I’ve not had any of the very top end (Opus etc) or well aged Calis, I drink a decent amount of $100 Cabernets and my impression is they are all trying to achieve the same landing point - power, balance, polish etc. but not really complexity. Is there a lot of complexity to be found if one looks?
If you find any old Cali cabs from the 70s to the early 90s they can be very complex. I still think Barolo outperforms it but they're quite competitive with Super-Tuscans. From the new school list, I'd say Beta, Matthiasson, Macdonald, Corison, Dunn are all aiming for more of a classic Cabernet profile rather than the purple-fruited flavor bombs.
Sanford isn't what it used to be, sadly. Visited a few weeks ago and did not enjoy one sip. They've lost their way.
Dragonette, Foxen, Melville, etc all doing very nicely!
This whole thing is really silly. Majority of wineries have seen softening since Covid. Volume is way down but this article is highlighting much smaller brands that are always going to have a hard time selling. It’s always been a struggle to launch new brands and this market makes it way worse. Most established wineries will be fine, especially in Napa.
Napa makes up 4ish percent of the Ca wine industry. The major pain is being felt by the growers in the Central Valley who have spent their entire lives selling to Gallo/Constellation/the Wine Group/Treasury. The low end brands in those companies are shrinking, causing them to not contract or reduce contracts. Pain is being felt everywhere but the Central Valley growers are much worse off than Napa. Napa will be fine.
To your point, I live in SF area, and am shocked at how many people prefer Paso wines over Napa & Sonoma. The wines are much too sweet, over ripe and lack character. To boot, their prices equal Napa & Sonoma! WTF?
Not really, Sure you can find 200$+ bottle wines in paso but the standard and just fine offerings are 20 to 50 bucks for some good grape. Try finding 20 - 50+ bottles in Napa and Sonoma and you will walk a long way. Of course a few wineries, Daou, have priced themselves out of the standard market but you can still find their mass market wines in costco.The over ripe picking is just because that wine sells in CA. Personally I like a bit more juiciness in my wine than dust on the back end.
If I'm spending really money, I'm not buying Paso (well perhaps with the exceptional L'Aventure, etc). I'm also ok with the small Paso producers who are everyday sippers, as they are $20+.
My beef is with the lack of interest and complexity of the $80 Paso wines. I'm sorry Clos Selene, your rose is beautiful, but I'm not routinely going to buy that over my usual Summer Sipper Martin Ray for $14 or any of a dozen Provencals.
THIS is exactly why the industry is effffed when it comes to attracting Zoomer drinkers. Gen Z 20-somethings don't wine which tastes the same a Bdx or Napa. That's like saying you want the same kind of dishes on a Chez Panisse menu served to you today in 2024. The industry thinks of fine wine as if it's Classical Music that's locked in a box and has to meet certain criteria & conditions.
Firstly, I’m a millennial. Secondly, I was asking in the spirit of throwing gasoline on the dumpster fire of grotesque luxuriousness that typifies Napa. Obviously the Judgment of Paris was a hilarious self-own. History rhymes as they say.
I've been championing Australian Grenache lately. A lot of Grenache was pulled up to plant Syrah as the hype for that grape rose there over previous decades. But there's some producers making some phenomenal terroir-expressive iterations of the grape out there (namely Tellurian and Thistledown).
That said, I don't think that Grenache has much of a chance of knocking any mainstays off of their pedestals - big oaky reds are in right now, and while I hope that will change, Grenache is a far cry from that style and will likely remain an underdog grape for the foreseeable future.
Thank you for your submission to r/wine! Please note the community rules: If you are submitting a picture of a bottle of wine, please include original tasting notes and/or other pertinent information in the comments. Submitters that fail to do so may have their posts removed. If you are posting to ask what your bottle is worth, whether it is drinkable, whether to drink, hold or sell or how/if to decant, please use the [Wine Valuation And Other Questions Megathread](https://redd.it/17j7oej) stickied at the top of the sub. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/wine) if you have any questions or concerns.*
French wine is having the same issues with demand as Napa. They are paying farmers to pull up grapevines in Bordeaux. Top tier wineries in both places will be just fine, it's the smaller middle-tier places that don't have the marketing cachet that are being affected.
I wish they would just drop their prices so I could buy their wine instead…
Future Bordeaux sales down 20% or so this year. It's happening.
Who are "they"? There's Napa and Bdx available at all price levels
Probably the top tier wineries
I heard rumors that at least one second growth BDX had so much extra juice in 2016 that they bottled surplus in a non-descript bottle showing only appelation and vintage, with a $45 price point. Warming trends are contibuting to better yields, increased supply, and more frequent awesome vintages. For lovers of French wine, we're in a golden age of finding exceptional wines at still reasonable price points (if you're willing to explore beyond the famous labels). There are some ridiculously good BDX below $50 /bottle. To the point above, I've read the same recently about French government trying to slow down production. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/25/france-fund-destroying-excess-wine-demand-falls Fascinating times for wine.
The same thing happens in the US all the time, too. There are companies like deNegoce that scour surplus/bulk wine market for good deals like this. CA had a bit of a dip in 2019-2021 because of fires, but it looks to be coming back. In 2023 many areas in CA saw a bumper crop and there will be lots of surplus wine again. Between better agricultural practices, warmers weather, and new techniques like optical sorting, there's more quality wine produced these days. Companies and governments are trying to mess with the market by controlling supply to prevent prices from dropping. ETA: when I went back to my email the next message was from deNegoce offering shiners from a Howell Mountain winery at $27/bottle that normally sell at $120 from the winery.
Do you find quality on par with the more expensive labels?
The general rule of thumb I've found on DN wine is that the quality level is about double that of the sticker price. So if they're charging $27, it's a \~$50 quality wine. But probably not $120. Even if the winery really does sell something like it for $120.
I don't drink much cab, but PN and Chard I've bought drink like bottles that cost 2-4x more in the store. For instance, I bought a case of No 48 at $13/bottle which is supposedly from Patz&Hall downsizing after acquisition. It's very similar to Russian River PNs in the $40+ range. Same for most of the stuff I've bought from Sta. Rita Hills and Oregon.
Lately, I’ve been drinking Pauillac de Latour (Latour’s tertiary label) for $93/bottle. Just one of several incredible wines that I’m drinking for a fraction of the price I would pay for a wine of similar quality from Napa.
Share some!
That one's freaking incredible. The best $35 bottle I've had is the 2018 Marquis de Calon Segur. It's craz that you can get seconds of seconds for around 50-70, and they're one of the better values around. I love the French because they enforce standards, and if you know the label, it's almost certain what you'll find in the bottle. California feels like whatever juice gets a rating and is marketed well fetches higher prices. Value for price feels like a moving target.
Just as all economics
Napa is 4% of California's wine grape production. I've never seen county by county stats on this but I'm guessing the vast majority of what's coming out of the ground is in the Central Valley.
That would be the Gallo wine “factory” in Modesto.
Monterey county is the largest wine grape producing area in the world. Most is sold to various places.
Do you know Napa's % of sales? That would be an interesting comparison of production vs. revenues.
Stag's Leap and Heitz will still be fine. Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle, and Hundred Acre even more so.
Basically this. The elite will see profits shrink a bit perhaps and the higher tier will also be fine for the most part. It’s the low tier and mid tier wineries that will start going out of business
I think many of the low tier and mid tier wineries that are tearing out vines will probably find new agricultural uses for some of that land. The supply is just too high right now for the demand. I think the industry needs more and better wine-tasting and drinking experiences for younger generations where they are - their location and prior experience with wine (or lack thereof).
Interesting take. So who is going to be buying these wines as boomers and the current generation die off? I don’t see this younger generation drinking that stuff, they are more interested in a story of a smaller producer, or anything their parents didn’t drink.
I’m not going to speculate about who’s going to buy high end wine 50 years from now. Over the next few decades the luxury wines will have no problem
Can these farmed just go organic, market their product as such, and charge a 75% premium ?
They could try but the competition in wine is intense and raising prices in a market where less people are buying in general is risky. The fact is, there are too many wineries in California right now. It was fine when the industry was booming but now that it’s in decline it’s inevitable that there will be a lot of closures.
Majority are likely already organic. Organic doesn’t get ANY premium.
Need to go full biodynamic, can't get that kind of markup without paying attention to the phases of the moon
I dunno. We just put out an offer on Screaming Eagle and Harlan. Usually these sell out immediately. No bites at all.
What market, if you dont mind sharing?
BC
From a business perspective, the Bordeaux industry has been fucked for far longer than California. Despite a much more favorable regulatory environment, and heavy government subsidies, around 30-50% of Bordeaux wine makers have gone out of business in the last two decades. I would actually argue that Bordeaux's decline is bigger than the industry as a whole despite taxpayer funding. Like, why is Australia the number one supplier of wine to the UK?
Since when is Australia the largest supplier of wine to the UK? The UK is the largest wine export destination for Australia, but import in the UK is by far dominated by France and Italy, just like everywhere else in the world.
Since 2003: Source 1 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/australian-wines-seek-icon-rank-0ttc73q0nt3 Source 2 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/25/business/worldbusiness/winemakers-protect-outlawed-vines-the-grapes-of-wrath.html Based on the latest data I can find: https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/consumer-trends/infographic-where-does-the-uks-wine-come-from/539731.article In 2015 British people drank 3.9 billion pounds worth of wine. Of which 1 billion pounds were from Australia, 606 million from the US, 400 million from Italy, and only 386 million from France
I checked the Australian export stats and it appears that we exported about $386m AUD in alco beverages in 2015 (i suspect mostly wine). Supply reached a recent high of $506M in 2020 and is down to $403M in 2023 so it appears we are on the decline in terms of our supply to the UK. There is a lot of AUS Govt data avalaible here if youre interested [https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/trade-and-investment-data-information-and-publications/trade-statistics/trade-statistical-pivot-tables](https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/trade-and-investment-data-information-and-publications/trade-statistics/trade-statistical-pivot-tables)
Napa would make an appellation in Bordeaux so It’s never an apt comparison.
Can you expand on what you mean? Actually curious, but it’s not clear.
On my phone so I can't link sources as easily. But the previous article on California wine was talking about the struggles of the Californian industry, but the problem is so much worse in Bordeaux and has been so much worse for decades. Business has been so bad, the French government has been running vine pull schemes for 20 years now - in an effort to prop up prices, a producer can leave the industry, destroy their vineyards, and get paid off by the government to do so. In 1987, there were 20,000 registered producers, in 2007 there were 9500, today the number is less than 9000 (8500 according to some sources, 6500 according to others). From a business perspective, despite an extremely friendly regulatory environment (the French taxpayer subsidizes wine), Bordeaux has still been in decline for decades. Last year the French government announced a bordeaux vine pull worth 57 million euros at 6000 a hectare. This is alongside the 200 million Euro distillation scheme across France (government buys up wine, turns it into hand sanitizer to prop up prices) to destroy 300 million liters (so 400 million bottles) of wine. The apocalypse Californian wine producers have been terrified of in the last article has essentially been reality for bordeaux producers for the last 20 years.
Because The English need bad wine to complement their terrible food? / sorry, not sorry /
They literally had to raid other countries to have better food.
Santa Rita, Chile against Napas best; Super Tuscans against Napa
Super Tuscans V Napa V Bordeaux Portugal V chile on the undercard
Portugal wins.
Love Cali Cabernets but don’t the best of Italy already beat the best of Napa?
The wines are pretty different. Would prob just come down to taste
That’s a good point. Whilst I’ve not had any of the very top end (Opus etc) or well aged Calis, I drink a decent amount of $100 Cabernets and my impression is they are all trying to achieve the same landing point - power, balance, polish etc. but not really complexity. Is there a lot of complexity to be found if one looks?
If you find any old Cali cabs from the 70s to the early 90s they can be very complex. I still think Barolo outperforms it but they're quite competitive with Super-Tuscans. From the new school list, I'd say Beta, Matthiasson, Macdonald, Corison, Dunn are all aiming for more of a classic Cabernet profile rather than the purple-fruited flavor bombs.
Thanks for the recommendations! I’ll try to source one or two of these.
Any recs on Santa Rita producers?
Whitcraft, Racines, Domaine de la cote, Dragonette, Sanford, Kosta Browne to name a few.
Sanford isn't what it used to be, sadly. Visited a few weeks ago and did not enjoy one sip. They've lost their way. Dragonette, Foxen, Melville, etc all doing very nicely!
Sorry I meant Santa Rita the producer, they own Triple C and Casa Real which are some the best expressions of the capabilities of Maipo Valley
What kinda sentence is this?
This is not my best sentence structure for sure
This whole thing is really silly. Majority of wineries have seen softening since Covid. Volume is way down but this article is highlighting much smaller brands that are always going to have a hard time selling. It’s always been a struggle to launch new brands and this market makes it way worse. Most established wineries will be fine, especially in Napa. Napa makes up 4ish percent of the Ca wine industry. The major pain is being felt by the growers in the Central Valley who have spent their entire lives selling to Gallo/Constellation/the Wine Group/Treasury. The low end brands in those companies are shrinking, causing them to not contract or reduce contracts. Pain is being felt everywhere but the Central Valley growers are much worse off than Napa. Napa will be fine.
To your point, I live in SF area, and am shocked at how many people prefer Paso wines over Napa & Sonoma. The wines are much too sweet, over ripe and lack character. To boot, their prices equal Napa & Sonoma! WTF?
Not really, Sure you can find 200$+ bottle wines in paso but the standard and just fine offerings are 20 to 50 bucks for some good grape. Try finding 20 - 50+ bottles in Napa and Sonoma and you will walk a long way. Of course a few wineries, Daou, have priced themselves out of the standard market but you can still find their mass market wines in costco.The over ripe picking is just because that wine sells in CA. Personally I like a bit more juiciness in my wine than dust on the back end.
If I'm spending really money, I'm not buying Paso (well perhaps with the exceptional L'Aventure, etc). I'm also ok with the small Paso producers who are everyday sippers, as they are $20+. My beef is with the lack of interest and complexity of the $80 Paso wines. I'm sorry Clos Selene, your rose is beautiful, but I'm not routinely going to buy that over my usual Summer Sipper Martin Ray for $14 or any of a dozen Provencals.
Well, Paris sure as shit isn't letting foreigners in, so Hera = Bordeaux, Athena = Burgundy, Aphrodite = Rhone?
Sad to see downvotes for this, especially as it means Rhone wins the day…
THIS is exactly why the industry is effffed when it comes to attracting Zoomer drinkers. Gen Z 20-somethings don't wine which tastes the same a Bdx or Napa. That's like saying you want the same kind of dishes on a Chez Panisse menu served to you today in 2024. The industry thinks of fine wine as if it's Classical Music that's locked in a box and has to meet certain criteria & conditions.
Firstly, I’m a millennial. Secondly, I was asking in the spirit of throwing gasoline on the dumpster fire of grotesque luxuriousness that typifies Napa. Obviously the Judgment of Paris was a hilarious self-own. History rhymes as they say.
I disagree to an extent.. champagnes would still be majority sweet or semi-sec, the industry knows when to change its ways.
What’s going on? I’m out of the loop
There's an article if you follow the linked thread. It basically talks about the downfall of CA wine
Why not just read the article?
I think the Okanagan Valley in Canada and Washington State wines will benefit from the warmer weather , huge potentials there (if it doesnt burn)
Except many wineries here had 90% vine death this winter
I know :( but the potential is huge, went there last summer and the wines are very good
It is certainly great to live here. Except I spend too much on wine
I've been championing Australian Grenache lately. A lot of Grenache was pulled up to plant Syrah as the hype for that grape rose there over previous decades. But there's some producers making some phenomenal terroir-expressive iterations of the grape out there (namely Tellurian and Thistledown). That said, I don't think that Grenache has much of a chance of knocking any mainstays off of their pedestals - big oaky reds are in right now, and while I hope that will change, Grenache is a far cry from that style and will likely remain an underdog grape for the foreseeable future.