How To Publicly Lower Your Wines Prices—Even in Napa Valley
A little well-crafted truth telling can go a long way
What does it mean when a Napa Valley winery lowers its prices on its latest vintage from its previous release? I’d like to suggest that wineries ought to consider saying what it means. I’m here to suggest a way to communicate lower prices.
Is the wine with a new and lower price from the year before inferior to the previous vintage? Does it mean the winery is having a tough time selling the wine? Could it just mean the ego of the owner isn’t as hefty as others? Or all three? Or something else?
I’m actually unaware of many wineries in Napa Valley ever lowering their suggested retail prices on new vintages…for any reason.
Joe Czerwinski, the Robert Parker Wine Advocate’s Napa editor, broached this subject in his recent preview of the 2022 Napa Vintage. He does it in the kindest of ways:
Despite an irregular 2022 vintage and bountiful 2023 and 2024 harvests, Napa Valley producers have been publicly holding their prices steady. In an ego and brand-driven world, any move to lower prices tends to be interpreted as an admission of failure or at least weakness. That doesn’t mean prices aren’t softening—just that it will take some work on the part of consumers.”
The subtext here is that Napa wineries aren’t nudging anything downward, at least not publicly. But if you look—you, the consumer—you’ll probably find some pretty good deals here and there.
It is a truism that when times are tough, when consumers aren’t buying as much wine, those still buying buy for less. In other words, it’s a good time to be a wine drinker who’s still buying.
There have been other tough times for Napa Valley, usually due to economic downturns. During those times, several Valley estates slinging $120 cabs find a way to offload them at a pretty good discount to flash sale sites to a small retailer or two in a smaller market or other under-the-radar methods. But what you rarely see is a Napa winery simply lowering their prices…say by 25% or more….and do so publicly. It might be, as Joe suggests, some sort of admission of failure.
It’s as though Napa and other strong wine regions must be immune to the laws of supply and demand, or at least that’s the company line. From an economics perspective, constantly increasing prices can mean one thing: constantly increasing demand for the product. I think if you talk to anyone in Napa Valley today, they might admit that’s not the case.
What I’m here to suggest is that honesty might be a good marketing strategy. But how would that work?
First, you need to get your story straight if you are a winery considering publicly lowering your prices. If you are a Napa estate that has previously found some measure of acclaim, it’s actually a pretty easy story to tell. And the first place you tell it is to your best customers: