NYT: The Grapelord of Napa

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The Grapelord of Napa Faces a Threat Worse Than Plague
For 50 years, Andy Beckstoffer drove up the price of wine. Did the strategy work too well?

By Ben Ryder Howe
May 9, 2020

One balmy winter afternoon, Andy Beckstoffer, a grape grower who has done more than nearly anyone to shape the premium U.S. wine industry, was sitting in Mustard’s, a restaurant in Napa Valley that is a kind of clubhouse for the vintner class. Although Beckstoffer Vineyards, the largest private grower in California, had recently set a sales record with a blockbuster harvest of $55 million worth of cabernet sauvignon, its founder was not in the mood to celebrate. The wine industry was in trouble, facing its worst outlook in generations — and that was before the coronavirus struck.

The litany of plagues was merciless: too many grapes, thanks to an epic haul in California and Washington. Too many wildfires and weird bugs unleashed by climate change. Too many new wineries in Napa, upsetting the balance of agriculture and hospitality. And then there were the millennials, or millenniums, as the 80-year-old Mr. Beckstoffer likes to call them.

The generation born between 1981 and 1996 has been blamed for killing everything from napkins to homeownership, and thanks to its passion for hard seltzer, liquid marijuana and other drinkable novelties, it’s been cast as the murder hornet of the wine industry as well. Mr. Beckstoffer finds their health-crazed rituals (Drynuary?) puzzling.

“Wine is plant-based,” he said, shaking his head and picking mirthlessly at a spinach and mushroom burger. “Why don’t the millenniums drink it?”

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