Golden State Governor Gavin Newsom, Gallo’s Roger Nabedian Address The New York Wine Experience
October 23, 2023There was no shortage of big names in attendance at Wine Spectator’s New York Wine Experience, which welcomed leading lights from across the wine world to the Marriott Marquis in Times Square this past weekend. California Governor Gavin Newsom—a winemaker himself as a partner in wineries PlumpJack, Cade, and Odette—was scheduled to be among them, but was called away at the last minute to undertake a humanitarian mission to Israel. Ahead of traveling to the Middle East to support relief efforts, Newsom addressed the Wine Experience in a video highlighting his thoughts on the future of California wine in America.
Newsom was a player in California wine long before he entered politics—first as a retailer in San Francisco and eventually as a winery owner—giving him a vast perspective on how far the industry has come over the years. “Today, California accounts for 80% of all U.S. wine production,” he noted. “It employs nearly half a million Californians. It generates $73 billion in annual economic activity. California supplies almost 3.6 million tons of wine grapes each year, 238 million cases in the U.S. market alone. If California was its own independent country, it would be very close to being the fourth-largest economy in the world and the fourth-largest winemaking nation in the world behind only Italy, France, and Spain.”
But he was quick to point out that the Golden State can’t be content to rest on its laurels, and must continue investing to lay the groundwork for future growth. “That foundation is around higher education. No state in America is investing more in higher education than our universities. We have some of the best and most renowned schooling in the fields of viticulture, agriculture, and oenology, with UC Davis being a great example.” He also referenced programs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Fresno State, and also Wine Spectator editor and publisher Marvin R. Shanken’s work to fund wine education at both Sonoma State and Napa Valley College.
Those educational efforts are vital to fuel innovation in wine, Newsom asserted, which is more important now than ever as the industry increasingly grapples with extreme weather conditions that complicate production. “We have to advance our innovation, and wineries in this state are adopting some of the world’s most sustainable practices, advancing not just sustainability broadly as it relates to regenerative practices, but also in areas like carbon capture and water reuse,” he said. Newsom has contributed to California’s sustainability drive himself, with his Cade Estate in Napa Valley becoming California’s first 100% LEED Gold Certified winery.
Sustainability of the wine industry’s workforce will also be important for the future, he continued. Noting workforce shortages across many industries nationwide, Newsom said of California wine, “We’re able to recruit and retain as well as reward a diverse workforce at every level of our wine industry. That’s a point of pride.”
One of the key challenges for the wine category in general is expanding the consumer base, with Newsom citing “a clear line of demarcation between those under and over 60 years old. And so a sustainable industry must do more to market to women and diverse communities, particularly young adults.”
Addressing such challenges won’t be easy, but Newsom pointed out that resilience is a hallmark of the California wine industry, exemplified during the battle with Covid through supply chain issues, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and extreme weather, to name only a few.
“For all the prestige that is attached to this industry, it’s hard work, it is hands in the dirt,” said Newsom. “It’s the exhausting iteration, the trial and error, those uncertain harvests with wildfires that have contributed to that uncertainty, certainly here on the West Coast. And it’s those uncertain, stubborn margins—something I know a lot about. But in the end, I also know this about this business. It’s totally and undeniably worth being in.”
Following Newsom, Roger Nabedian took the stage to offer his thoughts on the long-term arc of California wine and where the business is headed. Few are as well-positioned to weigh in on the topic as Nabedian, who played a central role in building the premium wine division at E.&J. Gallo during his 37-year tenure at the company. SND exclusively reported last week that he will retire in January.
Underscoring the theme of resilience invoked by Newsom, Nabedian noted that the history of California wine is an immigrant story, begun by European immigrants who brought their culture to California as they sought economic opportunity or fled hardship. That kind of “resilience is a big part of what we focus on as we think about future generations,” he said. “It was hard work and there were no guarantees. You can’t take the consumer for granted and you can’t take the industry for granted.”
Nabedian hearkened back to his days working with the legendary Ernest Gallo and his son Joe—who served as Gallo’s CEO for 25 years—to help instill a true wine culture in the United States. “They were talking about this program where we were going to give away corkscrews with every bottle of wine, with a little pamphlet on how to use it. That’s how far we’ve come. But we still have a long way to go.”
Asking how many people in the room were under the ages of 40 and 30, Nabedian explained, “We have to think about how to make products that appeal to consumers that are more diverse, younger, so that we can fill this room 20 and 30 years from now. So what you’re going to see from the California wine industry is a continued focus on crafting the world’s best wines, but also a focus on innovating the products that appeal to younger generations to give them an opportunity to enter the wine category of the future.”
Marketing to younger consumers by highlighting wine’s craft credentials and sustainability efforts will be key, he noted. Sustainability is “becoming much more important to consumers, and it’s the right thing to do. It’s going to take innovative thinking on how we continue to preserve our vineyards to be able to grow and make wines that compete with the best wines in the world.” He also called out the need to promote social equity and diverse workforces “that make our companies look like our consumers and put us in a position to make products that appeal to them through innovation.”
Finally, Nabedian appealed to the attendees of the Wine Experience to make their enthusiasm about wine contagious. “Obviously, if you’re here, you are a highly engaged wine consumer. Many folks who have been up here from all corners of the world have plead to you, please come visit. That’s really important. But what’s equally as important is to take your message home, tell your friends, tell your children if they’re old enough, tell them about the joy of wine, what it’s meant to your life, and how it fulfills your life. We need your help to continue to foster this industry and this community in the future.”
—Daniel Marsteller
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