Stucco housing tracts, evil investment banks, ugly big-box retail strips, dumb show-off high-rises, land-raping golf resorts, Hummers — the nation’s financial collapse has taken down so many awful trophies of American Culture, we should probably send it a Thank You note, maybe with a Linens ‘n Things gift card. But who can afford a card, or postage, when we’re all either out of work or making a lot less money or barely hanging on to some diseased sham of a career that probably never should’ve been a career anyway? What is next for this nation’s Shame Parade? Foreclosures of Napa vineyards and wineries, that’s what.
The Bloomberg Terminal reports:
In California’s Napa Valley, producer of the most expensive U.S. wines, 2010 may be a vintage year for foreclosures as the industry is squeezed by falling land values and a consumer shift to cheaper brands ….
More than 30 wineries are for sale in California, Oregon and Washington, the most ever, according to Rob McMillan, executive vice president and founder of the wine division of Silicon Valley Bank, a unit of SVB Financial Group in Santa Clara, California. The properties have too much debt, were new arrivals to the wine market or have owners who are looking to retire as competition rises and profit margins fall, he said.
Some Napa land deals that were never publicly disclosed or confidentially recorded at the county assessor will unravel this year and in 2011.
The best selling wine in America is the “Franzia Box,” made by a Central California industrial winery. But for a few weird years, people with more money than they ever deserved were dropping $500 or $750 a bottle for “cult wines” because, well, they are stupid, tacky people. Also, they could afford it. But no longer.
The definition of “decent bottle of wine” has dropped for all of us, with a 15% decline in sales of over-$30 wines and a 10% decline in bottles over $15.
And that is your wine-foreclosure report for this day in 2010. Soon you’ll be making “prison beer” with orange peel in milk cartons, in jail. [Bloomberg]
{ 83 comments }
Just don’t let them take my Night Train.
But will my huge jugs of Carlo Rossi be safe?
This is bad news for Ann Althouse.
Fortunately, this will not affect the production of Boone’s Farm, since the closest that this chemical amalgam comes to grapes is when its railroad tankcars pass through Yountville.
Would communion wine count as “cult wine”? No wonder the catholic church wants money so badly.
USA! USA! USA! Wine is for frenchies and girlie-men anyway.
the guy in the pic has a nice box.
best Halloween costume evah, also
I makes my prison hooch from canned fruit cocktail, in a plastic bag hung in the toilet tank, its the traditional way, and good stuff, too, except for the raging headaches.
That young man’s halloween costume, and especially the “spout,” it is FTW.
Will this affect the price of my Two-Buck Chuck?
For every oenophile lost, a sternophile is gained.
I know when I’m down to the bottom of my boxa’wine, I shamefully remove the bag on the inside and drain the sac, as it were. Per that photo, it appears I’m not alone.
[re=527018]JMP[/re]: I loves me my $30 riojas, but then again, for plain-old swilling, wino-style, the Carlo Rossi Paisano, oh, the joys of wino-hood.
Damn you, Charles Shaw!
Hee, hee. You said “hummer”.
Gone are the opulent days when we would grab a roll of duct tape and play Screaming Eagle hands, now we use Mad Dog 20/20
The hell did you Google to come up with that image?
I’m sure Nicholas Cage owned at least one of those vineyards.
[re=527029]Advocatus_Diaboli[/re]: If it does, the streets will run red…
That picture is a much better idea than the old hole-in-the-bottom-of-the-popcorn-box in the movie theater trick.
My cases of Ripple has a sad.
[re=527042]Chernobyl Soup[/re]: Guessing “Franzia Box”.
We shall have to send out to Russia for their potato vodka recipe.
There’s a Tom Joad reference in here somewhere.
Note to catholic church, change communion to this picture and your priest shortage is solved.
This is good news for beer-distribution baron John McCain
Sideways is probably to blame for the explosion economically unfeasible, super-expensive wineries. But won’t someone please think of the pretentious wine snobs?
[re=527017]Red Zeppelin[/re]: [re=527020]memzilla[/re]: [re=527029]Advocatus_Diaboli[/re]: [re=527048]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Good to see that, while many of us had the same thought, we all had different brands of swill.
When I was in prison we called it Pruno. Now I drink 20 year old Port. I guess crime pays.
Fukk California. France it where it’s at. Also.
What’s the word?
I know this is an important part of American history, but this is really disturbing. I wish you had chosen another image.
ok ok i can’t say that with a str8 face hahahahahha….also.
o/t, but congrats Wonkett – you got a shout out from Glenzilla.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
This kind of news is enough to make one seek religion. Guess I’m switchin’ to Blue Nun.
How did you guys get to my Facebook photo album from college?
ON Topic:Does this mean Anglea and Chase from Falcon Crest are bankrupt! Say it isn’t so Susan Sullivan!!!!!!
[re=527065]Buzz Feedback[/re]: Sez who? Best wines for the money are coming from Argentina. Tried a Malbec?
[re=527076]PlanetWingnuta[/re]:
Today we are all Lorenzo Lamas.
[re=527078]proudgrampa[/re]: This is completely true, for reds anyway. I actually can’t stand most red wines, but Argentinian and Chilean Malbecs are deeeeee-licious. Whites, there’s some good bargains from Aussieland and from the Pacific Northwest, too.
I’m one of those cynics who thinks anyone who spends more than $25 on a bottle of wine is just pissing his money away, though, since most of what I buy is in the $8-15 range and I can’t differentiate it from $100 bottles.
[re=527078]proudgrampa[/re]: Spain.
Three posts from Ken, before noon? OK now I believe the economy’s getting rough.
[re=527074]pattycake[/re]: I hate you for being in college when Facebook existed.
[re=527082]Mad Brahms[/re]: “I’m one of those cynics who thinks anyone who spends more than $25 on a bottle of wine is just pissing his money away…”
I’m a member of that club, too. I reserve my liquor budget for Grey Goose and Bombay Sapphire.
Hey, as long as Trader Joe’s has their broad selection of drinkable wine under $8, I don’t see any problem, except for the kind of assholes who borrowed $100 million to start yet another pretentious Napa winery. I’ll get around to weeping for them when I finish the deep depression the inheritance tax causes me.
Step 2: Cut a hole in the box.
I thought a “cult” wine was what they served everybody in the house just before the spaceship was supposed to land. If only the tasteless rich had been paying $500 a bottle for that.
[re=527030]Mr Blifil[/re]:
“For every oenophile lost, a sternophile is gained.”
I don’t want to be one of those people who go around correcting other people’s poetry on the internet, but I’m having trouble with the rhythm. Probably just me.
For ev’ry oenophile that’s lost,
A sternophile is gained.
It’s got the apostrophe in the middle thing going on, but the “that’s” strikes me as not beautiful. I don’t know.
Beer and gin – never out of style. Possibly because they’re never in style, despite the best efforts of modern advertising.
[re=527057]EdFlinstone[/re]: HAha. Big win there, buddy.
All you guys with your France vs. California vs. Spain vs. Argentina vitaculture; that’s all a buncha nanny-nanny-boo-boo. You can grow great wine grapes just about anywhere it’s not too cold year round. Embrace the whole world of wine (why not, prices are coming down fast?)
Does this mean that Francis Ford Coppola will be forced back into directing movies??
Oh, the horror, the horror….
That Napa shit is good, though. Glad prices are going to fall through the floor. Just bought 35.00 bottle of St. Supery Merlot for 10.00. Better lay in a case or two at this price before they go belly-up. Now I can use the good stuff for my Hot Times Get Drunkee Fruit Punch! Tastes better if you stick your pinkie out.
At this point, the entire California economy basically rests on movies and marijuana.
And foreclosure lawyers.
[re=527066]Noonan[/re]:
Thunderbird.
[re=527085]Prommie[/re]: Good wines, definitely. Anything from Rioja is usually outstanding.
[re=527088]whiskey tango foxtrot[/re]: Yes. Shouldn’t someone young enough to have had facebook in college be off at, oh, whatever websites (besides facebook) today’s children like, and watchin’ the MTV and Nickelodeon and listenin’ to the hippity-hop? And they should get off my lawn, also.
[re=527097]Autoo[/re]: “…nanny-nanny-boo-boo…” I LOVE it! Can I use it?
MAD DOG 20-20 bitches!
As long as I don’t have to give up my single malt for shitty blends… oh wait, never mind, it’s all alcohol, thus all good.
[re=527100]assistant/atlas[/re]: Unfortunate, because British Columbia does both of them better / cheaper.
[re=527118]Chuckie Jesus[/re]: That’s the spirit!
[re=527095]Fred Wertham Jr.[/re]: “That’s” sucks.
[re=527097]Autoo[/re]: Even Sacramento: it turns out Roy Ashburn was working on his own procedure for arriving at “noble rot.”
[re=527117]GOPCrusher[/re]: What is that? A Shiraz?
Was that picture snapped at that wedding Massa was gaying around at?
[re=527106]JMP[/re]: I can’t help it! I like warblogs.
[re=527095]Fred Wertham Jr.[/re]: Definitely just you.
[re=527042]Chernobyl Soup[/re]: Jim Newell’s 21st bday.
[re=527018]JMP[/re]: Only if you get a good solid hook with your index finger and prop the base solidly in the crook of your elbow before you tip that shit up.
[re=527089]proudgrampa[/re]: And scotch! Don’t forget the scotch. Famous Grouse, for example — worth every penny.
THIS OFFENDS WOMEN!!
Had to get that out of my system. OK, proceed.
Some IT entrepreneur should find a way to purge the interwebs of indiscretions like this picture and the still-life, “Girl sitting on toilet drinking a pitcher of beer,” I’ve see on Jim’s or Ken’s posts. There’s a fortunte to be made, young nerds. One of the only advantages of growing up in the 70s wasteland: no incriminating cell-phone pics.
Actually, am I the only one who found the 70s boring? People are so much funnier today.
not to get all serious and NIMBY up in here but the surge in wine production in napa and sonoma county is the worst thing that has happened to the intrinsic beauty and ecology of the landscape in northern california in forever (aside from that whole deforestation bizness). it’ll be a long battle but if some of this land returns to the less ecologically destructive uses of sheep and cattle grazing i’m all for it. with all due respect to the workers who will be losing their jobs. also, bottle shock was a really shitty movie.
[re=527189]predilectrix[/re]: http://www.reputationdefender.com/
Maybe its a Sideways move.
Pricey Oregon Pinot Noir is next on the Vin de America Demand Destruction Lolapalooza Tour 2010!
Salut! Bon sante!
Robert Parker can bite my left nad, also.
[re=527076]PlanetWingnuta[/re]: Lance and Melissa got tricked into selling Falcon Crest to Richard Channing.
For Arianna Brown’s sake, I sure hope no cheese comes with that wine.
[re=527042]Chernobyl Soup[/re]: Wait til she sees his Olympic medal.
Discerning box wine drinkers prefer the Vella Chardonnay. However, if I can save 50 cents, I’ll switch in a heartbeat.
[re=527079]nappyduggs[/re]: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! i dont want to be an asshole who tries to tell others they look fugly while my looks faded in the early 90s while trying to channel Simon Cowell.
[re=527272]nightshift[/re]: Those two little scheming bitches!!!!!!
Even though I love good wine and have winemakers in the family, the second of these two point/counterpoint Onion editorials sums up pretty much everything I feel about the wine world:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/34129
“… or barely hanging on to some diseased sham of a career that probably never should’ve been a career anyway”
How did you know I was a journalist? And that I like wine? IT’S LIKE YOU’RE READING MY MIND, MAN.
[re=527125]Mr Blifil[/re]:
I would have found a longer and less entertaining way to say that–but yes.
Best Thunderbird evar!
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