Many California growers can’t find buyers as the industry produces more wine grapes than the market wants. Wine consumption is declining globally as people drink less.
It’s harvest time in California wine country, but many growers are struggling to sell their grapes as changing drinking habits have caused demand to plunge. The decline is forcing some growers to tear out vineyards that their families have grown for generations.
Wine sales have decreased by more than 20% over a five-year period, causing prices paid for grapes to drop and prompting California growers to take roughly a quarter of the state’s vineyards out of production. Many growers are having to decide whether to harvest at a loss, leave grapes on the vine or replace vineyards with crops more in demand such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios and olives.
Third-generation grower Bill Berryhill said it means another year of losing money and wasting hundreds of tons of healthy grapes.
A lot of the regions in California have become stupid expensive, like Napa and Sonoma. Anything decent out of Napa is in the $30-$50 range. The average bottle price is somewhere around $75.
And the entry-level stuff from Europe is better than the entry-level stuff from California. If I had to choose between a $15 Cabernet from California and a $15 Bordeaux, I’m choosing the Bordeaux. You’ll also get a better price/quality ratio out of South America. Chile and Argentina make some good wines.
I really like wine and for the life of me I can’t find a single California wine that is worth the price point when compared to Europe. Not to mention there’s so much overmarketed slop wine that does every dirty trick in the book to make it taste disgustingly sweet or over-oaked. I very rarely have had a bad European wine for $50 and I can say that about half of the California wines in that range were worse than 25$ European counterparts. Maybe some of the $500+ bottles really are great in comparison to some of the Grand Crus out of Burgundy, but I haven’t found anything in a reasonable price range that was worth it. And like you said, other regions in the world punch enormously above their price range that I basically don’t buy anything from the Napa area of California as a matter of course. There are a few less popular regions in Cali that make great wine, but they are still too expensive for what they are.
Look I agree Rombauer Chardonnay and everything like it is over oaked. There’s not a ton of truly sweet wine but plenty of mid to poor red blends.
Sauv Blanc from Lake County (just north of Napa) can be pretty darn good. A lot of Napa houses blend with Lake County grapes because the land is so much cheaper. They also produce some great Zinfandel, the California varietal that has fallen out of popularity.
My favorite is the central coast Pinot Noir. It’s hotter and more peppery than a classic Burgandy but I love that shit.