The Cult Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Market Is Softening

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Pulling from a cellar with roughly 12,000 bottles and 2,600 selections, the team and Seattle fine dining institution Canlis has had one of the country’s best wine programs for decades. They’re no stranger to clientele perusing the restaurant’s 104-page wine list and ordering a bottle of Screaming Eagle or other cult California Cabs. But sommelier Nathan Bihm has noticed a shift. He has seen longtime clients who always went for big Napa wines begin asking for alternatives from Washington State or Bordeaux, in many cases citing price fatigue, but beyond that, they want a wine that carries a meaningful connection such as history, place, or the people behind the wine. “There has been a shift away from chasing clout or proving how much you can spend,” Bihm tells Robb Report. “I still sell prestigious, expensive Napa wines. But they are often served alongside a $175 bottle [restaurant list price] of Mencía from a winemaker I know personally, and both bottles are sold and enjoyed with the same enthusiasm.”

It’s a sentiment we’ve heard echoes of lately from collectors, auction houses, and consultants alike. And although we love our Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and other high-end cult wines as much as the next guy or gal, we fully understand the concepts of palate and wallet fatigue. In the first instance, many wine lovers are looking for lighter styles of wine with smoother tannins and softer body than the big, bold style of red Napa has become known for; and in the second, even in the rarified air of fine wine, there is a limit to how much someone will pay for a bottle no matter how full their bank account is. Regardless of people’s reasons, it appears the fervor around cult wine is easing.

We noticed the first crack in the all-Napa, all-the-time façade came in December after we wrote an article decrying the winery allocation system that makes purchasing a bottle of wine much more difficult than it needs to be. In the aftermath, several friends and acquaintances wrote to let us know that after signing up for winery allocation lists years ago and never receiving so much as an email confirming that their information had been received, they had suddenly heard from several high-profile, top tier, direct-to-consumer brands announcing that there were openings on the list for those who wanted to purchase wine—perhaps a tacit acknowledgement by wineries that they needed to be less coy with their allocations.

An industry insider who is a sommelier and wine collector recently told us that he has been contacted by too many wineries to count after being on lists for years. It might be too little too late for those wineries. “While waiting, the prices have risen outside my tolerance level,” he says. “My increasing age has seen me consume less wine.” With a cellar that will take him decades to drink through, he’s not in the market to add to his stock, especially at sticker-shock price levels.

In another indicator of trouble in paradise, prices for high-end California cult wines are dipping on the auction market. Amayès Aouli, Bonhams global head of wine and spirits, says he has observed “a softening in demand for full-bodied, rich, and higher-alcohol wines.” And John Sweeney, an auction and acquisitions advisor for K&L Wine Merchants, tells us, “For the first time ever, we have clients passing on their Screaming Eagle allocations from the winery as there is no longer any upside to buying and reselling.” Additionally, he says wine from producers who had a successful private list for years are oftentimes selling for less at auction than they did originally. As buyers’ tastes shift, he tells us there is a softening in the demand for almost all California cult wines including “Screaming Eagle, Scarecrow, Harlan, Sine Qua Non, Schrader, Realm, Abreu, Colgin, Hundred Acre, Marcassin, Aubert, Kosta Browne, Peter Michael, and Saxum.”

Sweeney agrees that it is a combination of changing taste and rising prices; buyers are no longer willing to pony up $500 or more for rich, high-alcohol wines that may be hard to pair with anything but steak. “Collectors are getting palate fatigue and realizing these are not wines that they want to drink on a regular basis,” Sweeney says. And while they all may not be gravitating towardsthe same replacement wines, as they explore other regions “they realize that Bordeaux, Tuscany, Piedmont, and Spain offer better value and wines that more suit their needs for everyday consumption.”

One of Sweeney’s clients, a wine collector based in California’s Central Coast who wished to remain anonymous, tells Robb Report that after 30 years of collecting, which started with Australian Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon before moving heavily into California, he is selling off some of his wine through K&L and is buying few if any bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa or elsewhere in the state. “I still love California Cabs; however, as I have become older, I tend to drink more Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and lots of Burgundy,” he says. While one reason is that these wines are much lighter in body and alcohol than the Cabs he was regularly enjoying, price definitely comes into play as well. “I feel better the next day when I drink lighter wines like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay,” he says. “I know the cost of everything keeps rising, but when $250 to $300 a bottle is the norm, it’s gotten a little out of control. I buy lots of really good Chablis for $50 to $75 a bottle as well as California Chards and Pinots that range from $50 to $100 a bottle.”

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The collector we spoke with said that although most of his friends are also moving toward Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the perfect pairing when they do open a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon is not necessarily the food, but the right group of people. “It’s really nice that many of us have cellars with nicely aged Cabs—and other wines—that we can pull out when we are having a nice dinner or getting together with like-minded wine friends,” he says. It seems that while the thirst for status-laden, full bodied California reds may never fully disappear, the satisfaction of enjoying one may have more to do with the memories it evokes or the company it is enjoyed in rather than the prestige of simply being able to afford it.

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