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Comment by mancerayder | Hacker News Reader

For some reason California wines are significantly more expensive than French (Bordeaux and Bourgogne regions I'm mostly interested in) and Spanish (Rioja) wines that are arguably more reputed, older and more experienced wineries, and I'd argue higher quality.

Yet California wines are VERY expensive. My uninformed hypothesis - French and Spanish winemakers make good wines with cost efficiency, whereas America's wine makers don't. So all things being equal, input costs are higher. I see the same with cider - compare Spanish cider to New York cider, the latter being 50 percent more expensive.

Could anyone corroborate or refute this?

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Our local wine shop in Burlingame, CA has a very knowledgeable 65 yr old proprietor (30 yrs running this store) who told me that Napa wines are definitely overpriced by 3x.

Because I'm not as particular about region he regularly introduces me to wines from other parts of the world that taste great at a much lower cost.

Same - the local wine shop has yet to fail me when I ask for a recommendation. Given them a price range and either taste preferences or meal pairing, and they have always sent me home with something I enjoyed.

Wine in North America is largely a gate kept rich person thing. It is usually not mass production wine, but what little amount of grapes grow go into weird wine makes that they then mark up as if it is nectar from god.

But that said, there is dirt cheap California wine brands, like barefoot.

Does Barefoot make anything decent? My experience with them has been mostly cloyingly sweet whites that really weren't drinkable. Gag.

Barefoot is the Heineken or Budweiser of wine.

So that sorta explains everything- price, taste, reach.

I am not sure where you live but Bordeaux and Bourgogne are regularly the most expensive wines where I live, NYC. With that being said, I can find just about any wine at any price point. Also, pinot's from Oregon are generally half the price and as good as a lot of Bourgogne I've had. Similarly, I've had a lot of great Chardonnays from Cali at a more affordable price point than their Bourgogne counter parts. With that being said, when I go to France, a lot of these French wines end up being half the price or less so it really depends on where you're looking.

If we compare California Chardonnays to the Bourgogne wines - I'm comparing price points, say, in the 20-30 range. In local wine stores and also in restaurants. They're the same price or more, unless you get something with a pirate or a dog or something on the label (although those are luxurious too oftentimes now).

I fully agree it's half the price in France. Even a 20 euro supermarket Bourgogne is worth 30-40 here.

My point is that the California ones should be much cheaper - there's no tariff.

My understanding from wine people is that European vineyards tend to be really old with the owners owning the land outright. Californian vineyards tend to be younger with the owners still paying off debt used to purchase the land. This just adds a large overhead cost to US wines.

That said, there are oodles of wines from the new and old world at every price point. If you want to spend $500 a bottle to get something from France, Spain, or California you can. If you want to spend $13 a bottle to get something pretty decent from France, Spain, or California you can.

In Portugal, you can get a good wine for 5 euros, but we are not great at marketing ourselves.

Portuguese wine and also olive oil are super high quality. In my country price wise it's on par with Italy/Spain/France. But make no mistake it's also on par quality wise.

Some of the olive oils have their own unique profiles and i also really like the lighter wines from portugal.

I also agree with this perspective from the UK.

One reason might be the strengthening dollar since the financial crisis.

(From 1 GBP being 2 USD in 2007, to 1.3 now. Likewise EUR was 1.6 in 2007, but 1.13 now).

That's potentially quite a big difference buying American goods vs European.

I had a great English red at a winery, I don't remember what it was unfortunately, and I was shocked when they told me the price of the bottle. It was 35 pounds a decade ago. I think it must be due to input and manufacturing cost efficiency that English and American wines that are equivalent are so much pricier than established old world wines.

Napa and Sonoma are very high cost of living areas

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