French attitudes toward Napa Valley, plus comparisons of winegrapes to meat?
It’s too funny, really. When I first started out in this biz, you couldn’t give Napa Valley wine away to the French. “Mais non!” was their attitude. It was vin de table, merde, Algerian plonk.
Some of us knew otherwise, and suspected that the French—so chauvinistic in the belief that no other culture could rise to their level, especially American culture—were simply whistling past the graveyard. After all, their run of dominance—lasting for centuries—had no assurance of lasting forever, and they were continually hearing California’s footsteps coming up behind them.
But now, listen to what the respected CEO of Moët Hennessey, Jean-Guillaume Prats, has to say about Napa Valley. He previously managed Cos d’Estournal, the Super-Second Bordeaux, which he took to new heights, according to Wine Spectator, so this isn’t merely some oddball voice out of France; his father, Bruno, owned Cos. So Jean-Guillaume is, in other words, the very establishment that once scorned Napa Valley.
Here’s what Jean-Guillaume said: “I do believe some of the great wine from Napa Valley will be the equivalent of the First Growths in years to come, not only in terms of price—it is already achieved—but in terms of perceptions, of quality, and in terms of being looked after and thought after by wine collectors around the world. So Napa, for me, is soon to become the equivalent of the great Medocs.”
Wow. They ought to put those words on a billboard right next to the “And the wine is bottled poetry” one on Highway 29. You wouldn’t need the whole quote: Just “Napa…the equivalent of the First Growths” would do it.
It doesn’t surprise me that the Bordelais are finally coming around to appreciating Napa Valley. After all, Christian Moueix and Baron Rothschild did it decades ago, visionaries that they were. What’s ironic is that nowadays it’s some Americans who continue to diss Napa Cabernet. Why they’re so stubborn in this attitude, when even representatives of the top French chateaux gaze with envy upon Napa’s near-perfect climate and soils, is beyond me.
* * *
And now, from the Department of Ideas That Are Going Nowhere, let’s zip around to the other side of the world, Australia namely, where an article in the North Queensland Register is calling for wine grape prices to be more objectively determined, like meat prices.
Mr. Rob Hunt argues that, of all agricultural commodities, only the price of wine grapes “is determined using subjective criteria.” He contrasts this with “an objective system” of pricing, such as that employed by his country’s Meat Standards Australia system, in which, I gather, a short loin is a short loin no matter where it’s from, and priced accordingly. That is, indeed, an objective system. It is also very different from one in which (for example) a Cabernet Sauvignon bunch grown in Beckstoffer Tokalon costs much, much more than a similar bunch grown in Paso Robles.
But nobody ever said wine grape prices are objective. They’re not, because wine wholesale prices aren’t subjective. We pay for certain names and reputations, and I for one assume that more rigorous vineyard practices go into a highly-reputed wine than into an everyday one. So it’s not likely that we’ll be grading wine grapes the same way we grade meat anytime soon.
On the other hand, Mr. Hunt is entirely correct when he observes, “I suspect there’s nothing more frustrating for growers than to see their carefully tended grapes dropped into the same receival bin as others of lesser quality.” That is a very sad situation for growers who work hard to grow quality fruit. We saw something similar happen in the early histories of counties like Santa Barbara and Monterey, where those grapes—fine quality for the most part—were shipped north or east, to be lost into vast blending vats destined for jug wines. The solution, as it turned out, was not to regulate prices, but to elevate the reputation of those counties, through small-production wineries making wines of critical esteem. You have to have the reputation first; then you can raise prices, not the other way around.
Cheers!
“I do believe some of the great wine from Napa Valley will be the equivalent of the First Growths in years to come, not only in terms of price—it is already achieved—but in terms of perceptions, of quality, and in terms of being looked after and thought after by wine collectors around the world.”
Equivalent, but not the same experience.
“. . . Mr. Hunt is entirely correct when he observes, ‘I suspect there’s nothing more frustrating for growers than to see their carefully tended grapes dropped into the same receival bin as others of lesser quality.’
That’s why growers of renown get credit for their grapes as single vineyard designates.
It started with Joe Heitz and “Martha’s Vineyard” and “Fay Vineyard” Cabernet bottlings.
Expanded with the Ridge and Joseph Phelps “Eisele Vineyard” Cabernet bottlings.
Became more commonplace in the era of Williams & Selyem single vineyard Pinot Noir bottlings.
And fast forward this era, with Andy Beckstoffer seeking recognition for his To Kalon Vineyard fruit.
From The Wall Street Journal “Off-Duty” Section
(March 19, 2011, Page Unknown):
“The Most Powerful Grower in Napa”
Link: http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704893604576200842057088206
By Lettie Teague
“On Wine” Column
In my comment to an earlier blog (maybe about “Two Buck Chuck”?), I cited the anecdote that a good “rule of thumb” on California wine bottle pricing is to take the input variable cost of grapes per ton and multiply by 100.
Here’s direct evidence of that formula, from The Wall Street Journal cited above:
“The Beckstoffer pricing formula calls for the price of a ton of To Kalon Cabernet grapes to equal 100 times the current retail price of a bottle. (This is true of all his heritage vineyards.) For example, if a bottle of Paul Hobbs Beckstoffer To Kalon Cabernet Sauvignon costs $250 (as it did at my local store) then Mr. Hobbs paid $25,000 for a ton of the fruit plus a base amount per acre that may vary. By contrast, the average price per ton of (average) Napa Cabernet is just north of $4,000.”
Oops!
Sorry to be innumerate.
“In my comment to an earlier blog (maybe about ‘Two Buck Chuck’?), I cited the anecdote that a good ‘rule of thumb’ on California wine bottle pricing is to take the input variable cost of grapes per ton and multiply by 100.”
DIVIDE by 100, not multiply by 100.
The reverse: take the suggested retail selling price of a bottle of wine and MULTIPLY by 100 to project the input variable cost of grapes per ton . . . as cited in The Wall Street Journal wine column.
Postscript. Such a practice presupposes a winery using purely input variable costs to derive their suggested retail selling price.
That ignores the “keeping up with the Jones” Napa mindset: if my neighbor commands 100 bucks a bottle for his Cabernet — and I think mine is at least as good as his — then damn it, I should get 100 bucks, too!
Related to these twin phenomena:
Veblen goods – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
[Excerpt: “Some types of luxury goods, such as high-end wines, designer handbags, and luxury cars, are Veblen goods, in that decreasing their prices decreases people’s preference for buying them because they are no longer perceived as exclusive or high-status products.”]
Giffen goods – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good
[Excerpt: “Some types of premium goods (such as expensive French wines, or celebrity-endorsed perfumes) are sometimes claimed to be Giffen goods. It is claimed that lowering the price of these high status goods can decrease demand because they are no longer perceived as exclusive or high status products.”]
Some Napa Valley producers have been making First-Growth quality wines for a couple of decades now.