Making wine tasting more affordable would help bring in new customers.
My first foray into the Napa Valley wine tasting scene came with my freewheeling days during the rise and fall of the dot.com boom, when I worked for a startup that pioneered web-based email—a predecessor to Yahoo and Gmail. It was during this heyday that I experienced my first wine country boondoggle as part of teambuilding outing between our partner, Netscape, which was the web browsing “darling” of the time. The trip was our team’s reward for months of 80-hour work weeks and 2 a.m. cross-continental conference calls.
Like all Gen Xers of the time, we boozed it up all the way from Silicon Valley to Napa, impressing our client partners with our drinking prowess. We raised one too many glasses during the six-tasting-room tour they challenged us to as we raised toasts to keeping the good times rolling not only for the day but for the long work weeks ahead. The itinerary was easy to execute since we were all in our 20s and most of the tastings were free, which encouraged us to pucker up, sip and buy with an abandon (thanks to those IPO bucks that had yet to materialize). While both our company and Netscape were not long for this world, the memories and friendships that were born during boomtime live on to this day.
My next visit to wine country came nearly two decades later when I made good on my vow to move to Napa Valley, which I made during that delirious dot.com trip. As surprised as I was when my startup bellyflopped, I was equally shocked to discover that the days of free wine tasting were gone-baby-gone. I was bitter for a bit and felt robbed of the idyllic wine country life I had imagined over the years, but the more “local” I became, the more I understood the economics of it all. Especially as I came to understand the crucial role that tasting room fees and on-site sales play in the sustainability of wineries.
If I thought I was surprised then, I was even more so when I heard that Raymond Vineyards in St. Helena started to offer free tastings this summer. My inner child did a major fist bump to the sky because this news meant I would finally have a way to silence those always-be-visiting dot.com compadres, who excel in the fine art of complaining about how the glory days of free drinking in Napa died right along with our dot.com dreams. Like any good deal, there are limitations to this one, in that free pours can only be scored on Sundays and Thursdays, but this still feels like a coup given average tasting fees at Raymond can range from $50 to $175. Jean-Charles Boisset, proprietor of the property and vast Boisset Collection, also implemented the comp tasting model at his Sonoma County property, DeLoach Vineyards.
The move feels like a reaction to the latest data showing that younger demos are drinking less alcohol and may be even less inclined to deal with steep tasting room fees. The 2024 Community Benchmark survey of more than 550 wineries revealed that tasting room visitations were down 7.5% in 2024—and in April of this year, down 10.1%. Add to that the 2024 Silicon Valley Bank Direct Sales Report which stated, “In Napa County, the average fee is now $75 for a regular tasting and $138 for reserve…no other region comes close.” One has to wonder if Boisset’s free tasting ploy will mark a move in the right direction to shift perceptions around affordability and Napa Valley. Other questions in my mind include whether other wineries jump on the “free” wielding bandwagon to reel in more customers, and will gratis tastings give on-site wine sales a much-needed bump? It’s hard to say, but during a time marked by slumps and the revolving door of international trade and tariff wars, it might be a silver bullet train worth hopping aboard.
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In other moves, the U.S. House of Representatives, passed and delivered legislation in the form of H.R. 1 to President Trump. The initiative, if passed, could double the annual fund for programs including the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Market Access Program, which support U. S. wine exports and foreign market development. Robert P. Koch, president and CEO of the Wine Institute (a longtime advocate of the legislation), said in a statement, “This funding is vital to help level the playing field for U.S. wine exporters who compete in global markets where foreign producers often benefit from more favorable trade terms.”
With so many moves and shakes in the wine industry—and the world—it’s hard to predict what will stick and what deals will bloom and burst, but I plan to do my part by pondering all of the above during freebee tastings at Raymond with my wayward friends, which will no doubt result in impulse wine and merch purchases and waxing over what could and should be considered the glory days.
