California Wineries Rate the Future

(Wines&Vines) - A panel discussion organized at the last minute due to the cancellation of a keynote speaker yielded some thoughtful marketing insights for vintners at the Wine Industry Financial Symposium on Tuesday. David Dearie, the CEO of Treasury Wine Estates for two years, withdrew as a speaker after his ouster was made known Sunday, so symposium founders David Freed and Kathy Archer called on four experienced winery GMs to share their plans for the future.

The four panelists, from small to medium-sized wineries, shared many of the same concerns expressed in other talks during the proceedings at the Napa Valley Marriott on Monday and Tuesday, such as a temporary oversupply of grapes and undersupply of tank space in wineries during this harvest season, as well as the long-term prospect of an undersupply of California grapes to fill the most popular brands bottled by California wineries.

 “We, like many here, are principally concerned with supply, and continuing to improve quality,” said Steve Spadarotto, vice president and general manager of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa, Calif. He said the future appeared a little ominous, “with the big wine companies buying up land and excluding the rest of us.” Yet when asked by moderator Robert Smiley, director of the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis, to rate his outlook for the future of the wine industry on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being highest, Spadarotto rated it a nine. The other panelists chose eight or nine also.