Many times when our clients arrive for their vacation we find that they are still fascinated by business. Even though they’ve come to Napa and Sonoma to get away from work, they can’t resist analyzing how the business of wine making works. Despite the fact that growers, being farmers, have a skeptical attitude that often finds something to worry about, this region has natural advantages.
The great botanist Luther Burbank, who did so much of his groundbreaking work in northern Sonoma, called this area the spot on Earth most blessed by nature. That clearly improves a farmer’s odds. But, this area is not all about farming, and that in part is what makes it so resilient and stable.
In any destination wine country there are three economies. At the most fundamental there is the farming economy, complete with nurseries, irrigation systems, tractors, field hands, pickup trucks and cowboy hats. It includes management companies who bring in bring teams to do the tedious hand work on the vines, rotating between properties throughout the year, and an array of service companies to help everything work smoothly.
On top of that is the wine making industry, there are many more growers than there are wine makers, who require special equipment and permits and on and on. The expression goes; the way to make a small fortune in wine making is to start with a large fortune. That economy includes stainless steel tanks, specialized yeasts, sorters, presses, filters, caves, lots and lots of oak barrels and a large community of pale skinned (they don’t get out much) staff known as cellar rats. Then there are the wine makers from the assistants who do all the work, to the head wine makers who spend a lot of time going out to lunch and dinner, entertaining and educating buyers.
Finally, there is the hospitality industry, hotels, restaurants, transportation and tours, tasting rooms, golf courses, spas, horseback riding and hot air balloons. While it is true that it wouldn’t exist without the wineries as a draw, it is a significant business, after all, Napa is the top wine destination in the world, and if Sonoma isn’t number two, it’s probably in the top three; being located so close to San Francisco, one of the world’s most popular destinations doesn’t hurt business at all.
The curious thing about having three complimentary economies is that they have different cycles, what might be a bad year for tourism due to a tight economy, will be good for the wineries because people drink more. While cooler temperatures might favor tourism it’s hard on the growers. If grape prices are up its good for the growers but rough on the wineries, and the reverse is true as well. Of course an estate winery grows its own grapes, so they can be caught betwixt and between.
The timing of each economy is also different; growers often take a year to prepare the land and then wait three years for the first grapes, five years to full production. Wineries go year to year, with some varietals ready to drink the coming spring and other wines needing a couple years in those expensive barrels before they can get a price sticker. Meanwhile, the tour business is a mix of reservations made months ahead and last minute decisions that have people scrambling to keep up. Somehow or other these three industries work together to create the wine country experience and their differences contribute to a stronger whole.
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