Sideways 10 Years On: The Cost to Merlot Farmers Has Been More than $400M
In the last post, I shared a one-year projection for Napa Merlot prices. The model only worked when a variable was created to measure the effect of the movie Sideways on the price of Merlot. Years ago, a study was done to measure the effect that the movie had on retail Merlot prices. I thought I would take a crack at determining how much money that movie has cost Merlot farmers. This is not meant to be any sort of definitive study of the issue. I have no interns and this

Napa Merlot Prices for 2014
Today’s grape price projection is Napa Merlot. To me, it’s a grape that is playing tug-of-war with itself, in a statistical sense. On the one hand, it works as a blending grape for Napa Cabernet and Meritage. On the other hand, it works as a varietally-bottled wine. On the one hand, it is a Napa grape and therefore the market is strong. On the other hand, an off-hand, drunken comment from a fictional character played by Paul Giamatti has destroyed the market for Merlot.
Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon Prices for 2014
The last post was wholly dedicated to Napa Cabernet Sauvignon and was quite bullish for the future. I do want to reiterate that those are very basic projections and I would strongly recommend you have VFA customize projections for you, instead of using those. At the very least, use the lower limits of probability that I provided. Even in today's market, Napa cabernet is already very expensive. One of the strategies used for controlling Napa cabernet costs is to blend in c