Under the Hood: Napa’s Tasting Rooms Face a Numbers Problem
More tourists, less revenue — a model showing signs of strain. By Tim Carl
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The Spotlight
Welcome to Under the Hood, our exclusive Saturday series for Napa Valley Features paid subscribers.
Today’s article thumbnail: A new WineBusiness Monthly Tasting Room Survey shows Napa’s median order value plunged 24% between 2023 and 2024. We paired that drop with local visitation estimates to calculate what it would take to match 2023 revenue in 2025. The answer: unrealistic growth. As order values decline, even record-setting tourism wouldn’t come close to closing the gap. We did the math — and the numbers tell a story the wine industry, and the communities that rely on it, can’t afford to ignore.
We’re also diving into the latest data from our readers’ polls and providing insights from our economic dashboard, covering local Napa Valley, U.S. and global markets.
“What We Are Reading” highlights excerpts from recent articles that explore a range of views on topics relevant to our community and beyond.
“What We’re Reading”: Excerpts of the Day
"I just hear the wine industry complain like, woe is me, this has only happened to us." – from Dan Petroski in "Massican’s Dan Petroski Has a Very Different View of Wine’s Challenges Right Now," Grape Collective.
"Portraying red wine as something that spreads cancer throughout the body — particularly in the context of moderate consumption — can cause unnecessary fear and confusion." – from Lee McLean in "Red wine made the poster child for alcohol-related cancers," Daily Wine News.
“Real GDP decreased at an annual rate of 0.5% in the first quarter of 2025 ... primarily reflecting downward revisions to consumer spending and exports.” - from "Gross Domestic Product, 1st Quarter 2025, GDP by Industry, and Corporate Profits," U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“In one bill, my Republican colleagues have managed to rip health care away from 17 million people, take food away from 11 million people, gut the green energy investments responsible for our manufacturing boom and drive up our national debt by a whopping $5 trillion dollars. All of this just to give tax breaks to their billionaire donors who don’t need the help” – from Rep. Mike Thompson in "Thompson Releases Statement on Passage of Republicans' Big, Ugly Bill: ‘Bad Deal for the American People.’" Press release.
"This is a historic step forward for America’s seniors. By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned." – from Frank Bisignano, in "Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors," Social Security Administration, press release.
American pride has dropped to a historic low, with just 58% of adults saying they are extremely or very proud to be American — the lowest combined total since Gallup began tracking in 2001. – from Jeffrey M. Jones in "American Pride Slips to New Low," Gallup.
The Trump administration has begun canceling government subscriptions and contracts with Springer Nature, including at the USDA, DOE and NASA, amid political criticisms labeling top scientific journals as “junk science” and “corrupt,” raising concerns of politically motivated censorship. – from Andrew Nixon, in "Trump team axes contracts with publishing giant Springer Nature," Nature.
"The entire system of research and the entire education in the United States is really under attack." – from Brian Sandberg, in "The first American ‘scientific refugees’ arrive in France," Politico.
“Almost the entire field is working on faces and gaits, on detecting people in images, and nobody seems to be saying, ‘Wait, what are we doing here?’” – from Yves Moreau, in "Wake up call for AI: computer-vision research increasingly used for surveillance," Nature.
“It’s been a painstaking effort, however, to establish whether neoantigen vaccines work in the clinic.” – from "Individualized mRNA cancer vaccines make strides," Biotechnology.