Tom Cannavan
Administrator
Picked this up on Social Media this morning. How different is this from visits to European cellars, or cellars in South Africa for example:
Going wine tasting in Napa Valley costs more than double what it did six years ago, new data shows.
The average cost of a basic wine tasting in the valley reached $40.62 last year, up from $20 in 2016, according to the reservation platform CellarPass. Meanwhile, an “elevated” tasting — the sort of experience that might include a food pairing or reserve wines — was $82.26 per person, a jump from $30 in 2016.
The swelling consumer price index isn’t the only factor informing wine costs. Many of the most powerful determinants predate 2022. A labor shortage means employers are paying higher salaries. Supply chain hold-ups have resulted in escalating costs for goods like glass bottles, the price of which doubled in some cases. Serial wildfires have shot up insurance rates — Schramsberg’s annual premium went from $200,000 to more than $800,000, Davies said — and their threat requires constant maintenance of defensible space, another costly line item.
“As a businessperson you never want to raise prices,” said Lee Hudson, owner of Napa’s Hudson Vineyards, where a wine tasting now costs $95, up from $65 a year ago. But that price hike, and the fact that sales are higher than they’ve ever been, still can’t keep pace with the soaring cost of doing business, he said. “We’re making less money.”
www.sfchronicle.com
Going wine tasting in Napa Valley costs more than double what it did six years ago, new data shows.
The average cost of a basic wine tasting in the valley reached $40.62 last year, up from $20 in 2016, according to the reservation platform CellarPass. Meanwhile, an “elevated” tasting — the sort of experience that might include a food pairing or reserve wines — was $82.26 per person, a jump from $30 in 2016.
The swelling consumer price index isn’t the only factor informing wine costs. Many of the most powerful determinants predate 2022. A labor shortage means employers are paying higher salaries. Supply chain hold-ups have resulted in escalating costs for goods like glass bottles, the price of which doubled in some cases. Serial wildfires have shot up insurance rates — Schramsberg’s annual premium went from $200,000 to more than $800,000, Davies said — and their threat requires constant maintenance of defensible space, another costly line item.
“As a businessperson you never want to raise prices,” said Lee Hudson, owner of Napa’s Hudson Vineyards, where a wine tasting now costs $95, up from $65 a year ago. But that price hike, and the fact that sales are higher than they’ve ever been, still can’t keep pace with the soaring cost of doing business, he said. “We’re making less money.”

Napa wine tasting fees are more than twice as expensive as 6 years ago. Here’s why
‘Elevated’ wine tasting in Napa now costs $82 per person on average, data shows. Yet even as inflation is pushing wine prices even higher, customers seem happy to keep paying.
