Stats: Napa Wine vs. The Rest of California

For the statistics nerd in all (most?) of us. A perspective on Napa, and Sonoma, in comparison to the wine industry in the rest of the state. This is good info for the people that see California wine only as Napa Valley.

 

They might be from out-of-town  :)

 What areas produce wine?

California is 85-90% of the country's wine production.

Napa County produces 4% of California's wine and 0.4% of the world's wine.

Sonoma County produces 6% of California's wine.

The Central Valley produces 75% of California's wine. 

Visitation

There were 3.7 million visitors to Napa in 2023, over 60% were there for the day vs. overnighters. If that sounds like a lot, Disneyland got more than that in 2020 during the Pandemic. 

Sonoma County actually gets a lot more visitors, though only 80% say they are here for the wine. I expect that is 100% for Napa. A larger percentage of Sonoma visitors say they are here for the restaurants.

Who owns the most acreage of vineyards in Napa?

The top five are:

• Treasury Wine Estates - a global wine company based in Australia
  
• Silverado Investment - a vineyard ownership & management company
• The Laird family - Ken and Gail Laird bought their first piece of Napa property in 1970 with financial help from Robert Mondavi.
  
• Gallo - the gang from Modesto
• Constellation Brands - global (mostly) alcohol company based in upstate NY

These five own about 10,000 of the 45,000 acres of vineyards in Napa.

Sonoma County's largest vineyard owners are Jackson Family Wines, Gallo, Silverado Investment, Treasury, and Rodney Strong Vineyards.

How many wineries are there in Napa? 

You would think this would be an easy question to answer, it's not.

In California, to make and sell wine a "type 02" winegrowers license from the state's Alcohol Beverage Control is required. Remember the 4% of the state's wine being from Napa? Well, nearly 28% of type 02 licenses are in Napa. The ABC shows over 1,800 02 licenses in Napa, out of a state total of almost 6,700 (data as of late 2023). Each license can have multiple labels.

There are about 500 winery members of the Napa County Vintners Association, however The Napa Wine Project says they've found 1,100 visits to physical and virtual wineries in the county.

This points to a real allure to make and sell wine in Napa. It may also point to better profit margins than other places. It might sound like market saturation, as well.