In the end a wine is not worth some intrinsic value, it worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

If you want value skip Napa – go to Lodi, Portugal, Wa. State and Georgia (The Country)

1) Resort Money- In Provence, France they get similar prices as many Napa Cabernets for poorly made Roses because rich German tourists are happy to pay for them while they sit on the beach during their yearly outing always from the cold weather. Sonoma Valley and Livermore for example will never get the same prices because there are not enough thousand-dollar-plus-a-night resorts to support the high prices paid by their high spending guests. Other regions would charge the same if they had the traffic demographic to support it generated by these exclusive worldclass resorts.

2) Perception of Value- (Belief by the consumer that you get what you pay for) If your neighbor’s Cabernet is $100 and yours is $50 (pre-recession) than most guests would consider that your neighbor’s Cab was twice as good as yours because the price was twice as high. So as a Winery you then raise your Cab price to $125 so as to not look like a discount or lowly schmuck producer to your visitors. Your neighbor hears about it and suddenly his Cabernet is priced at $175. So this madness has happened over and over in Napa and Bordeaux until the prices do not reflect the wine. Status and image is everything to high dollar wineries in Napa and Bordeaux, the product is a far second as marketing and brand positioning in the market come first. Low prices are often a sign of weakness and inability to true trophy hunters (those spending 100k to 250k+ a year on wine for personal use, i.e. not us poor wine geeks who buy a few measly $100 bottles at a time,lol) and the financially elite who don’t waste their time on “cheap wine,” or wines that don’t score 99 to 100pts in WS and WE.

Robert O’Maoilriain – Wine Critic, SonomaSom.com

As someone who began their wine education with Italian wines, I found Napa to be incredibly disappointing for the price. As a young wine enthusiast, I’ve never been able to afford the some of the truly spectacular examples to satisfy my everyday drinking needs. At the $20 price point I find that South America fully satisfies my occasional craving for big over-extracted wines.

The points made regarding why the cost of Napa wine is so high was well written. Cost of land, labour and vinification methods certainly contribute to the price we pay. These are great points to explain to customers appalled with wine prices in general. However, while it may not be fair to expect Napa to produce wine with the finesse and complexity(and balanced alcohol) of say, Barbaresco, at comparable prices, I know where my palate would rather invest $100.

As a born and raised Napa guy I agree. We would have to think long and hard about driving up to Yountville or Calistoga on the weekend because we knew Highway 29 would be clogged with yuppies in their BMW’s and Mercedes. We just wanted the tourists to go away.

But the Napa wine industry gave my Mom 15 years of a good job at Mondavi so it is kinda one of those things that you like and hate.

I guess all I can say is the iPhone is not the best phone on the market.
And many people have shelled out $400 – $500 bucks to be the first to have one.

While many phones out there do the same principal thing “Makes a call”
I could even get a phone for free if need be.

I kind of like me iPhone and all it’s silly truly useless features.

Oh back to wine, who in the hell would pay to much for a cheap bottle on Napa wine.

Cheers!
The NapaWineGEEK

How much are you paying for the expensive land?
How much are you paying for the Marketing & Branding? (the hype)
How much for the Celebrity Wine Maker or G4 Consultant?

How much better really is the product in the end? It might be marginally better than most but not 2 to 3 times better, if you are using price as a gauge.

The Majority of the Valley suffers from Illusory Superiority.

So it is up to the wine blogger, the food and wine commentators, and the Gary Vaynerators to get people to try other wines from different regions with unique flavor profiles and expand their palates, the democratization of Wine if you will.

In the end though, we will probably end up paying more for our favorite Monastrell or Touriga National as the American palette expands.

WWAC

Regarding the arrogance comment…you must have been referring to the tourist and not the Napan’s who have to put up with all of that crap. The true Napa folks could give a damn about what wine you drink and would prefer you to drive over to Sonoma and clog up there quaint city streets and highway.
Cheer’s
KL

I just finished a photo shoot with Gary Vaynerchuk and while tasting through our wines out came the classic comment, “People don’t smell their wines enough” and he’s right. SO put your nose in your tasting glass of a wine you’ve never tried before and then let your sniffter do the deciding and have some fun with it! Explore explore explore and then explore some more….

If a publication offered you $3 per word for your flawless prose I guess you would … you would… well, based upon you post, you would turn it down on principle and accept far less, right?

I’m surprised that many people who otherwise support capitalism and free markets in every other sector (insurance, tuition, fuel) want to deny free commerce to the wine industry, or at the very least, fault wineries for participating in a free market driven by demand and willingness of consumers to pay a certain price for a certain product.

Are cult wine prices excessive? Sure they are. But so is the price of diamonds and saffron. The market will correct itself, and already has. I see the case club mailings and many of $80 cabs of 2 years ago are offered for $600 per case.

The free market knife cuts both ways.

Dave

I believe I addressed the fact that quality is very subjective in that I asked people to stop trusting ratings and go with their own tastes.