Look Out Napa!
For those of you who know me, this does not mean @NapaTheLab has gotten herself into trouble!
No, it means I’m about to find my way back to Napa Valley! In short order we’ll be meandering vineyards, navigating wineries, and investigating gorgeous wine caves; chatting up staff, vintners, winemakers, and owners; enjoying marvelous meals; and most importantly enjoying what we anticipate will be some awesome wines with an eye toward adding them to our collection.
While in the planning stages for several months it’s finally time to pack!
Personally, I love visiting Napa in the off-season. The Valley is a bit less congested, hotel and
airlines prices tend to be a tad more comfortable, and folks in the industry
seem to have a bit more time to talk.
Our first step as we begin planning a trip is always to set a theme. This trip it’s:
Focus On Family Favorites
As Napa wine collectors and given several of the wine industry trends we are witnessing, we feel it’s primetime for us to spend a visit reconnecting with our favorites. We want to solidify our relationships, stay up-to-date on recent vintages, and certainly taste current releases. Unfortunately we won’t be able to spend time with every one of our favorites so we offer our apologies to those we’re forced to miss this trip. Then again it’s always good to have an immediate reason to return! As you’d expect, our trip will focus on the wines. However, we’ll also be taking time to enjoy some of the world-class restaurants and unique shops the Valley offers!
Currently our cellar’s makeup is 93% red, 44% Cabs, and 88% Napa wines. FYI, our second place varietal is my personal favorite, Petit Verdot. With this in mind we’re truly heading into our favorite wine region of the world! Nothing against the other regions, it’s just that our palates find the lush, full bodied wines of Napa to be dead center in our bullseye.
While we’re tasting, I’ll be asking questions on a few topics we’re curious about, including:
- Price increases. We understand costs escalate, but not every Cab is destined to become a cult wine and necessitate multi-hundred dollar per bottle price tags;
- Customer service. While in no way universal, we’ve observed too much deterioration in our DtC and membership service to ignore. Essentially how does a winery focus on what we call their ‘small data’ – existing customers?
- Ownership. Change is inevitable and ownership matters. Also in our experience while new buyers almost always say ‘nothing will change’, I’ve never encountered a new winery owner who didn’t buy in order to put their personal imprint on the wines they produce;
- Club membership. Making changes to Wine Club models is currently quite popular and most often solid! That said, as customers, we need to know what we need to expect in the coming year plus how they are adjusting to current times; and
- Stability. Are the winemaker, grape sources, and estate vineyard management team unchanged or have significant new personnel come into the wine making process?
So please come along!
This is your invitation to accompany us, at least electronically. Our visits will take us from the Valley floor to the hills – from the magnificent dust of the Rutherford Bench to the delectable vistas and mountain fruits of Atlas Peak (and others).
Naturally we’ll be reporting mostly about reds, but we always enjoy meeting the occasional white and certainly will be watching for bubbles, which are in serious need of being restocked after a long, hot summer and several large holiday gatherings!
Follow us on our blog at DP Wine Cellar and/or our Instagram feed!
Look out Napa – here we come!