Winemaker’s choice: When marketing and the perception of exclusivity collide
I had coffee yesterday with a winemaker from Napa Valley who works for a high-end winery: triple-digit Cabernet and all that. We were taking about marketing, when she said something about Napa wineries that intrigued me enough to write it down: “Do you want to sell wine,” she asked, “or do you want to be ultra-exclusive?”
Great question, especially in the context of Napa Valley Cabernet. She was referring to all these Cabs that cost an arm and a leg. In our conversation, we mentioned specific wineries, which I will not. What she meant, of course, is that these wineries seem to have a choice: they can get out there and market (in all its multi-faceted dimensions), or they can rest on their laurels and assume that their wines will be in demand for a long time to come.
Wineries that choose the latter—on the assumption that their cult status, high critical scores and in-demand waiting lists will always provide them with more customers than they can supply—somehow seem to think that marketing is a dirty word. There’s something grubby about it, they feel. Only pedestrian little wineries have to actually sell themselves; a great, grand winery does not. Does the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti have to get out there and hustle? Of course not, or so the argument goes.
Well, I don’t know if Romanée-Conti has to market or not, but I would think so. Wilson-Daniels, who distributes them in the U.S., used to invite me up to their St. Helena chateau once a year, along with a few other writers and critics, to taste through the entire range of seven new DRC releases of the vintage (La Tache, Romanée-St-Vivant, Romanée-Conti, Richebourg, Echézeaux, Grands-Echézeaux and Montrachet). It was terrific fun, but I think you’d have to view that as marketing, although I don’t know if Wilson-Daniels does it anymore. Anyhow, the lesson for me was “Even the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti has to market.”
And yet, quite a few Napa Cabernet houses don’t seem to think that they do. The apparently feel that what has worked for them in the past will work for them into the future. Marketing would dull the perception of exclusivity that they currently benefit from, and their fear is that, once a super-expensive wine is no longer perceived as exclusive, it may no longer be in demand from wealthy customers who don’t want to drink what everyone else is.
The thing to consider here is inventory. Now, you and I will never know how many unsold cases of (fill-in-the-blank winery) are piling up in some temperature-controlled warehouse. It may very well be that the winery everybody thinks is selling out every vintage actually has back vintages piled up to the ceiling. (This would be one of the winery’s closest-held secrets.) But I think this is the case far more than you’d think, and certainly, one hears rumors to that effect. Of course, a rumor is just that, but like they say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
When there were only a handful of Napa Valley Cabs that cost $100 or more, this was not a problem. But nowadays there are scores of them. I’ve long believed that it’s impossible for all of them to be selling everything, every year. There just aren’t enough people out there to buy it all up, even when you roll in China. Thing is, many of these proprietors are so wealthy that they’re not really concerned about selling everything. They can afford to sit on inventory for a long time, and besides, the wine may actually be getting more valuable as it ages. I knew someone who once bought out the entire production of a well-known Napa Valley Reserve Cabernet for an entire vintage, and then warehoused for resale it for ten years. They made a lot of money on that one.
Lest you think I’m suggesting that fostering the perception of exclusivity is somehow tainted or wrong, rest assured I am not. Rarity and desirability are integral to marketing anything, be it artwork, writing pens or wines. More than two thousand years ago, certain Roman and Greek vintners figured out how to do it (where do you think the concept of “the Comet vintage” came from?). The Bordelais proved masterful at it four hundred and more years ago, and they’re still pretty good at it. All that the Napans have done is to learn at the feet of the masters.
Bordeaux is Bordeaux; it probably will never go out of demand, even though that demand waxes and wanes throughout the centuries. But one cannot say the same of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, or so it seems to me. It has certainly solidified its hold on the imagination of wine lovers, but Napa does suffer from certain potential problems: it’s under attack from the low-alcohol crowd, prices are ridiculous, competition from elsewhere (including Bordeaux) is increasing, and younger consumers don’t seem to have the infatuation with Napa that their parents had. These things aren’t deal-killers, quite yet. But any one of them could prove hurtful to Napa, and a combination of them all might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Let’s try this again (as the original link isn’t working):
From The Wall Street Journal “Op-Ed” Section
(April 21, 2006, Page A14):
“When Blogs Rule, We Will All Talk Like —-”
Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB114558585173032092
By Daniel Henninger
“Wonder Land” Columnist
@John Skupny that Ramey Chard was pictured at Mariano’s/Cantoro’s depending on whether your in IL or MI. I also believe David is currently the consulting winemaker for Merus right now as well, but he is certainly based in Healdsburg! Cheers.