There was a time, more than two decades ago, when keeping tabs on new wine brands in California felt like a manageable, even orderly, undertaking, one that I would have confidently said I had more or less under control, even as an early-career wine writer.
These days, the idea borders on the absurd.
Each year, the US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issues between 1,800 and 2,000 basic winery permits for California operations. Many of these, however, reflect ownership restructurings or new facilities tied to existing permit holders rather than genuinely new ventures.
Meanwhile, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control grants roughly 400 to 600 new Type-2 winegrower licences annually. Yet a significant number of new brands operate within custom-crush facilities and therefore never require a Type-2 licence at all.
Then there are labels. The TTB approves on the order of 80,000 Certificates of Label Approval (COLAs) for California wines each year, a figure that includes not only new labels but also revisions to existing ones. Each unique wine for sale in California (even just the newest vintage of an existing wine) requires an approved label.
Depending on how you interpret and reconcile the above numbers, a conservative estimate could suggest that somewhere between 250 and 600 new wine brands are launched in California every year.
Some of these are little more than private labels, unlikely ever to cross the path of the average drinker. But many others represent individuals, families, or groups of friends taking a genuine leap and attempting to make and sell wine under their own name.
Despite my best efforts, I encounter only a fraction of them.
At tastings, whether public or trade, I make a point of seeking out brands that are new to me, paying particular attention to those whose wines show real promise. Boxes of samples also regularly arrive unannounced on my doorstep, some of which turn out to contain wines from freshly minted projects. And now and then, in conversation with winemakers or their assistants, someone will casually let slip that, outside their day job, they are quietly bottling wine under their own label.
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Image of winemaker Ryan Pass of Pass Wines by Emma K. Creative.
