Afterword: What Should I Do with My Winery?

A Practical Checklist for Owners in Napa’s Crowded Luxury Lane

A Fork in Road / Photo by Adobe Stock

After publishing The Napa Valley Essays: A Compendium, which gathered eight essays and three interludes on the structural pressures facing wineries in our valley, several readers asked the question that naturally follows: if the old model is no longer working, what should a winery owner actually do?

This afterword offers a way to think through that question.

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For those of us connected to a Napa Valley winery competing in Napa’s crowded luxury lane—wondering whether the business is too small to win on scale, too familiar to stand apart, or too costly to operate casually, while knowing the place is too emotionally important to walk away from easily—the hardest step is psychological, not operational.

Every property, family, balance sheet, vineyard, permit, and brand is different. But for wineries facing weak demand, rising inventory, unclear succession, and a market position that is not distinct, the first step is the same: stop assuming that a little more marketing will restore the old model.

At some point, we have to ask a different question: not how to restore the old trajectory, but what is the most intelligent use of the assets now.

Before turning to specific choices, the numbers have to be faced.

How much cash is the winery using? How much inventory is building? What debt must be serviced? What margins are real? What capital will be required, and how much time remains under current conditions? Those questions have to be answered. But the answer will not be found in the financial analysis alone.

The numbers can show the pressure, test alternatives, and confirm whether a chosen course is economically sustainable. The decision belongs to the owner. The dilemma cannot be solved by talking to an accountant or financial manager, and the hardest choices cannot be handed over to their analysis.

In the end, each of us has to decide what role the winery should play in the future—and then use the numbers to test whether that future can be sustained.

With that in mind, here is a checklist.

1. Stop bottling more wine.
   Do not turn bulk wine into branded inventory unless you already know who will buy it, at what price, and through what channel. Once wine is bottled under your label, it becomes harder to move without damaging the brand. Rule one: no more bottled inventory without real demand.
   

2. Do not count on DTC to save you.
   If the tasting room is not converting and the wine club is not growing, do not assume more emails, more events, more “experiences,” or another CRM consultant will fix the problem. Direct-to-consumer only works when enough consumers want your wine, not just the Napa experience. Measure the real conversion economics. If customer acquisition costs exceed lifetime value, shrink the ambition.
   

3. Protect the label.
   Do not push the brand into discount channels just to move cases. A label can leave the market with dignity. It can remain part of your family history, your cellar, your events, and your story. The danger is letting the label become a bargain-bin reminder that the market did not support the ambition.
   

4. Create one wine that has a reason to exist.
   Do not keep releasing a full portfolio simply because the old model required one. Pick the one wine with the clearest identity, best site, strongest margin, and most credible reason to be opened. Make less of it. Price it honestly. Break away from the score-driven style if that is what trapped the wine in sameness. Make wine for occasions, meals, and repeat use—not grandeur. One useful wine is better than six forgettable ones.
   

5. Do not confuse validation with demand.
   A better score, a better consultant, or a more polished release campaign may help at the margin, but it will not solve the basic problem if the wine still gives consumers no distinct reason to care. Scores can reassure. Consultants can improve execution. Neither can manufacture durable demand for one more familiar Napa story. If you continue, the question is not whether the wine can be made better. The question is whether it can be made necessary.
   

6. Test the fruit market before you sell hope.
   If another winery values your grapes more than your own label can monetize them, sell the fruit. That may be difficult now. Buyers are selective, contracts are harder to secure, and marginal blocks may not clear at old prices. But that is the point. The fruit market is a reality check. If the grapes cannot command a rational price and the bottle cannot carry the cost, the vineyard needs a different plan.
   

7. Outsource everything that does not create distinction.
   If you continue, strip the business down. Custom crush. Share equipment. Share farming crews. Outsource compliance, bookkeeping, fulfillment, and other back-office functions. Keep only what makes the wine or the customer relationship meaningfully different. If the brand is not differentiated, fixed overhead will kill it faster than bad wine.
   

8. Combine with a neighbor.
   If two adjacent or nearby wineries are both carrying too much overhead, too much staff, too much equipment, and too little demand, the rational answer may be combination. Sell, merge, joint venture, share facilities, consolidate farming, eliminate duplicative labels, and reduce planted acres to the strongest sites.
   

9. Keep a deep cellar and donate strategically.
   Save the best wines, the large formats, and the vintages that mark the journey. Work down the rest through major donations to charity events, especially outside Napa Valley. Find organizations that would be thrilled to have you supply wine for a gala dinner, benefit, or auction. Use the wine to create goodwill rather than discount pressure. You do not have to sell every bottle to prove the project mattered.
   

10. Stop planting Cabernet by default.
    Napa does not need more undifferentiated Cabernet. If the site is marginal, cool, wet, heavy, or expensive to farm, do not replant Cabernet just because that is what the last model required. Let weak blocks rest. Pull out what should not be there. The valley has too much sameness already.
    

11. Remove vineyard landscaping.
    Many small vineyard blocks are not economically serious; they are landscaping with farming costs. If a block exists mainly to make the property look like a winery, reconsider it. Put back a lawn, plant drought-resistant gardens, create an orchard, build an insectary, or restore a more useful and beautiful landscape.
    

12. Consider a conservation easement.
    If the property has meaningful development value, a conservation easement may preserve the land, restrict future overdevelopment, and recover some capital value through tax benefits. In some cases, relinquishing unused entitlements may be more valuable—and more responsible—than trying to use them.
    

13. Replant only with a real point of view.
    If you must replant, do not simply recreate the old Cabernet model. Napa needs more diversity, especially serious white wines and table-friendly alternatives. Sauvignon Blanc is obvious. Chenin Blanc is almost obvious. Mediterranean white varieties may be interesting. The test is not novelty for its own sake. The test is whether the wine gives consumers a reason to care.
    

14. Repurpose the facility.
    If the winery is not economically viable as a winery, stop treating the building as sacred. Equipment can be sold or leased. The space may have better uses: an art studio, private gallery, family retreat, writers’ retreat, recording studio, event space, or other low-intensity use allowed by permit and zoning. The fact that a building was designed for wine does not mean wine remains its highest use.
    

15. Find better uses for the land.
    Some vineyard land should not remain vineyard land. Napa historically supported many crops. Lease land to young farmers. Plant fruit trees. Consider grazing where appropriate. Think about horses, vegetable production, or lower-intensity agriculture. In some places, the best use of land may be to protect a creek, restore native vegetation, reduce erosion, support pollinators, or reconnect habitat. Do not assume the only honorable future for Napa land is more wine grapes.
    

16. Do not jump from one uneconomic project to another.
    Olives may sound attractive, but olive oil is labor-intensive, processing capacity is limited, and the market is already crowded with small, under-scaled brands. Replacing an uneconomic wine project with an uneconomic olive oil project is not strategy. It is repetition.
    

17. Ask the children the hard question.
    Do they really want this? Not the romance of owning a winery—the work. The farming. The selling. The storytelling. The standing behind the table. The constant need to explain why this wine is different from the next one. If no one in the next generation has the passion, the talent, and the stamina, succession may be a hope, not a plan.
    

18. Set a decision date.
    Do not let the winery drift for another vintage, another release, another club cycle, or another family meeting. Pick a date by which the facts must be faced and the next course must be chosen. Open-ended patience is not strategy. It is how inventory grows, options narrow, and the market makes the decision for you.
    

19. Do not confuse discipline with retreat.
    Shrinking production, selling fruit, donating wine, leasing land, combining with a neighbor, or pausing the label may feel like retreat. It may actually be the most disciplined decision available. The mistake is not changing course — it is waiting until the only choices left are discounting, distress, and regret.
    

20. Decide whether you are running a business, preserving an estate, or maintaining a family memory.
    Those are different objectives, and confusing them destroys money and clarity. A business has to earn customers. An estate has to be maintained intelligently. A family memory should be protected from commercial humiliation. Decide which one you have. Then act accordingly.

The emotional work in that final step matters because a winery is rarely just a business. It is land, family, memory, ambition, taste, hospitality, and identity. But sentiment alone cannot carry the project. The task is to rediscover the authentic core.

Why were you drawn to this place? What did you hope to build? What does the land ask of you now? How are you truly distinctive from others? What can you offer that is honest, needed, and genuinely worth preserving? If that core is real, rebuild around it. If it is not strong enough to support the next chapter, honor what was built and move forward with dignity.

The most dangerous option is denial.

The question is not, “How do I keep the old dream alive?” The better question is, “What is the highest and best use of what we have built?”

That is where the real work begins.

Next Week
Napa Valley: A False Signal
The Visitors Are Here

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Ted Hall is a vintner and rancher at Long Meadow Ranch in Napa Valley. A winemaker for more than 50 years, he was named the 2017 Grower of the Year by the Napa Valley Grapegrowers. A former chairman of Robert Mondavi Corp., he is also a Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company and a founder of the McKinsey Global Institute. He writes about economics, incentives, and how complex systems shape real-world outcomes across agriculture, food, wine, and consumer markets.