Joseph Phelps Sold

[William P]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/29/lvmh-bu ... soars.html

[JimHow]

What does it all mean?

[William P]

A quick thought is we are seeing the end of another Napa Valley era. The first vintners were farmers and grape growers. Mondavi's, Krug, Sebastiani, and Martini. In the late 60's to mid-70s we saw the second migration. These were people who made a great deal of money in business and moved to Napa for the life style and beauty. Barrett, Bournstein, Coppola, and, Phelps and far too many to mention began wineries with their money and passion. California exploded onto the world wine stage. The big individual money immigration continue until the 2010s. Although Mondavi fell earlier.

Now we see phase III, the corporate wine world. All the those 60's and 70's families are selling to large corporations, large wine conglomerates, and winery accumulators such as Jackson Family, Gallo, and Bill Foley.

[JimHow]

Interesting. I’ve personally always liked the Phelps Insignia style, I’ve had a few bottles here and there over the years until the prices got out of my reach.

[Harry C.]

What it means is prices are going up!

[JimHow]

So be it then! I’ll take this $36 La Tour Carnet 2016 I’m sipping at one tenth the price, we plebeians know where the deals are.

[AKR]

A quick thought is we are seeing the end of another Napa Valley era. The first vintners were farmers and grape growers. Mondavi's, Krug, Sebastiani, and Martini. In the late 60's to mid-70s we saw the second migration. These were people who made a great deal of money in business and moved to Napa for the life style and beauty. Barrett, Bournstein, Coppola, and, Phelps and far too many to mention began wineries with their money and passion. California exploded onto the world wine stage. The big individual money immigration continue until the 2010s. Although Mondavi fell earlier.

Now we see phase III, the corporate wine world. All the those 60's and 70's families are selling to large corporations, large wine conglomerates, and winery accumulators such as Jackson Family, Gallo, and Bill Foley.

Corporations - as perpetuals - don't have to worry about squaring up estates every 50 - 100 years and all the tensions between family members with different visions and time horizons for the land/business.

What has always seemed odd about Phelps to me is that the wines are generally quite full priced, yet sold stacked high in pallets at Costco, supermarkets or Total Wine. I'm hard pressed to think of vintages that I have not seen in those channels, so it wasn't just an occasional closeout deal either. Even WDC has joined the Phelps pipeline, appending their '12 btl limit' to some bottlings which is a flag that they must have oceans of whatever it is.