No matter how you measure it, the U.S. wine industry has enjoyed very little good news in 2024. Market data paint a grim picture of declining overall consumption, a less interested consumer, excess grape inventories, and a growing “wine lake.” Premiumization, which offset declines in sales volumes in recent years as consumers purchased fewer but more expensive bottles, can no longer carry the industry. The post-Covid boom in on-premise sales is in the rearview. By virtually all accounts, it’s a very bad time to be a U.S. wine producer.
If you’re producing Bonanza, however, you’ve got a very different story to tell. The non-vintage California Cabernet Sauvignon, dubbed “Bonanza” by producer Wagner Family of Wine and “Baby Caymus” by its legion devoted fans, has defied gravity to become a major growth driver for the maker of Caymus Cabernet. According to Impact Databank, the Wagner family sold 131,000 cases of Bonanza in the U.S. when the brand launched in 2020, a number that has grown by 60,000–80,000 cases annually ever since. Nearly 360,000 cases of Baby Caymus shipped in 2023, and Wagner Family of Wine owner and principal winemaker Chuck Wagner sees no signs of slowing demand.
That makes Bonanza — a somewhat lighter, brisker style of California Cabernet priced at roughly $22 and made primarily of grapes sourced from Lodi — a pretty serious outlier. The wine has sold so well in the first months of 2024, in fact, that Wagner has questioned whether he can supply the market through