One California Wine Region Bucks Declining Visits & Sales:There’s A Reason It’s Growing While Others Shrink

With California wine sales declining, could the instigator be high prices? Is it just too expensive to go estate wine tasting and buy good estate wine?

A lot of theories have been thrown around about declines in wine consumption: generational shifts, health, weight, post pandemic destocking, people spending money on distant travels rather than staying in California visiting wine country. You can probably add a few items to this list.

Recent analytics researched by WineBusiness.com sheds light on this subject. Every single wine region in California has declining visitations and sales. Every single region but one.

Lodi: San Juaquin Valley’s town of renown and home of pioneer winemaker Robert Mondavi. He grew up here and his kids played hoops at the local high school.

It’s home to wine grapes planted in the late-1800s. They’ve been an agricultural town since California’s Gold Rush. We’ve always said, “If you like Syrah, Cab, Zinfandel and other hearty reds, you owe it to yourself to visit and taste Lodi wine.”

The real variable here is price point. Tasting and buying wine in Lodi is simply less expensive. It’s good wine too (but don’t look for soft wine here….think bold reds.)

‘We’ve always said, “If you like Syrah, Cab, Zinfandel and other hearty reds, you owe it to yourself to visit and taste Lodi wine.”

Lodi, with a $12 average tasting fee, is the most economical of every California wine region. Average tastings costs around the state have skyrocketed. Our recent article documented regional averages. Does it make sense to spend $65 to taste five, 2 ounce samples of wine? There’s a $100 tasting in Paso Robles these days. Napa has $200-$300+ tastings. Is that good value?

Lodi visitation and sales increased three of the past months while visitation and sales in regions like Temecula, Paso Robles, Sonoma, Napa and Santa Barbara declined during the same period.

Here are the numbers (sales/visitor changes over Aug-Sept-Oct):

Lodi +5.9% (+3.7% Visitors)

Central Coast -4.1% (-8.7% Visitors)

Napa -4.7% (-5.6% Visitors)

Sonoma -6.4% (-11.2% Visitors)

Sierra Foothills -8.5% (-8% Visitors)

Temecula -9.8% (-10.1% Visitors)

Would you rather enjoy two Lodi tastings at $24 or dropping $120 for two tastings in Paso, Santa Barbara or Sonoma? What about Millennials? Do those 88 million younger people (<40-years-old) find value in a $100+ tasting? And, if a wine maker hopes to introduce their vino to them they’ll need to introduce lower tiers of products and decreasing price points.

Obviously some people are saying no to high prices and heading to the Central Valley. 

There are plenty of beverage options these days, all of them are winery rivals. We can socialize at a bar with a $20 pitcher of beer and share it with three friends. Or, how about $12 for a Margarita. How about whiskey neat or tequila rocks for $12-$14 and still get home to barbecue dinner. These are wine maker’s competition, not just the winery down the road or a region up state. Their competition is 1-staying home and enjoying a glass of wine, 2-local bars, 3-spirits,  4-cannibis, 5-ready to drink beverages and 6-abstaining.

Using this model of moderation you don’t have to drive 250 miles to wine country. You don’t have to stay in an expensive hotel. You don’t have to eat in expensive restaurants (or fatty fast foods at hamburger joints.) There are so many other consumer options.

Winemakers need to adjust by getting a grip on their ego, their costs and their price points. While packaging wine in alternative containers (boxes & cans) they need to create wine product for those 88 million Millennials. They’re the up and coming consumption cohort.

Perhaps winemakers can reverse this trend. Their livelihood depends on it. The industry depends on it. We hope winemakers in Lodi lead California’s wine industry forward.

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Some notes on our wine ranking system.

Bill & Erin Hodge write about California Wine, the estates & winemakers producing them and educational information about Vino. Living in California Wine Country provides a front row seat to the places you want to visit the most here in the Golden State.

– -✰  means -What’s next on your list of wines
-✰  means -Not liking it too much
✰ means  -We’ll drink this wine, especially if it’s hosted!
✰+ means -You’ve got our attention and we might buy this wine.
✰+ + means -We’re hooked and we’re going to buy this wine.
When you see -✰/✰+  with a slash, it means we disagree.