We swore we would never go back to Napa Valley again. It\u2019s too expensive, we said. The wineries are too snobbish, we said. There\u2019s great wine in other places, we said. But there we were, driving up Route 29 one more time. Why did we do it? Because there are wineries we knew or wanted to get to know. Because there are restaurants that we love. Because Napa Valley is just so beautiful, any time of year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of that doesn\u2019t negate the fact that wine tasting in Napa Valley costs way, way too much. There are many wineries where the basic fee for tasting is $150 and surely inflation will push more of them into that financial stratosphere. At some point, it has to stop. (Doesn\u2019t it?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the wineries\u2019 points of view, there is no reason to stop charging whatever the market will bear. If people will pay those prices, why lower them? And if wineries were solely in the tourism business, that would make perfect sense. But they are basically in the wine business and they need to have people buying their products in wine shops and online, not just taking sips while on vacation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have read and have seen with our own eyes that sales of wine are decreasing.\u00a0 Grapes are being left on the vines to rot<\/a> and feed the birds.\u00a0 Young people \u2013 potentially the wine drinkers of tomorrow \u2013 are drinking beer and cocktails instead of wine.\u00a0 Wine tasting, as enjoyable as it is, should be an advertisement for the products a winery makes.\u00a0 Choke off easy entry to the enjoyment of wine today and there will be fewer customers tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if the winemakers of Napa Valley feel secure that they can continue to thrive by selling to Silicon Valley zillionaires, then that\u2019s a strategic decision they\u2019re entitled to make. After all, Tiffany, Porsche and, yes, Mo\u00ebt et Chandon do quite well selling luxury products. There are many superb wineries in Napa Valley but there are more that fall below the level of \u201csuperb\u201d. Inflating prices for tastings may be good for their owners\u2019 egos. Many of them made a fortune elsewhere and then bought a vineyard. Those wineries need to lower their tasting prices to attract more visitors\u2026and sell more wine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We swore we would never go back to Napa Valley again. It\u2019s too expensive, we said. The wineries are too snobbish, we said. There\u2019s great wine in other places, we said. But there we were, driving up Route 29 one more time. Why did we do it? Because there are wineries we knew or wanted … Continue reading Editorial: Is There a Limit to the Cost of Wine Tasting in Napa Valley?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3411,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}