Cult Wines Less Impacted By Weather Variability, Study Shows

A recent study from Washington State University shows that “cult wines” may adapt and adjust to unpredictable weather better than their more mainstream counterparts.  A rare and ultra-premium product, "cult wines" are only available to those who join a winery’s allocation list or purchase the bottles on the secondary market. 

The WSU study looked at how differences in temperature and rainfall affect the price and quality (based on wine score values) of cult and high-quality non-cult wines.

“Cult winemakers are striving for perfection,” said study co-author Jill McCluskey, WSU Regents Professor, and director of the University's School of Economic Sciences. “Each vintage is evaluated more closely, and there is an expectation of consistent high quality. Therefore, one might expect for weather variations to affect cult wines more than non-cult wines.”

However, after analyzing data for red and white wines produced in the Walla Walla region of Washington, as well as California's Napa and Sonoma areas, researchers realized that the opposite is true.

“We were expecting to find larger weather impacts on cult wines’ price and quality,” said Ron Mittelhammer, School of Economic Sciences Regents Professor and study co-author.  “The fact that they were more insulated from the effects of weather variability was a very interesting discovery. The effects on non-cult wines were more consistent with our initial expectation, in terms of magnitude and statistical significance.” 

The study showed that non-cult wine scores were more impacted by weather fluctuations, especially when it came to early growing season temperatures and harvest season rains. The data also showed that weather had no definitive impact on the number of cult wine cases produced, while case quantity for non-cult wines was somewhat more affected.

As for pricing, the economists found that prices of non-cult wines were often negatively associated with late growing season temperatures and harvest season rains. However, the results were a little more nuanced for cult wines.

"The release price was not very sensitive to the weather, but the secondary market price was,” McCluskey said. “That’s an interesting finding, and it’s consistent with our other research, which showed that the secondary market price reflects the ‘true value’ of cult wines.”

Physical location is one possible reason why cult wines are more immune to weather fluctuations. Cult winemakers may have been more intentional and strategic than non-cult winemakers when choosing a geographical region to grow grapes. This, WSU said, ensures that they are ideally located for consistent quality.

Moving forward, McCluskey and Mittelhammer said they are considering ways to expand their research.  One option is looking at how climate change may impact cult wineries’ reputations over time.  Another potential area of focus is seeing how weather might affect wineries outside of the cult wine and high-quality non-cult wine space.

Click Here to read the results of WSU's study.

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