About Me & The Study
Join the Napa Valley Wine Study – Help Shape the Future of High-End Wine in Napa Valley
About the Study
The wine industry has studied high-end Napa for decades. The vineyards, the winemakers, the critics, the sales data. One voice is almost entirely missing from all of it.
The buyers.
The Napa Valley Wine Study is the first independent qualitative research into the psychology of serious Napa wine buyers. The people spending $100+ per bottle, with real cellars and real opinions about the wineries they love, the ones they've left, and why.
These are in-depth individual interviews. One person, one long conversation, the kind that shows what actually drives a purchase, what builds loyalty, and what makes someone walk away.
And it starts from a premise most industry research skips: $20 a bottle is not "high-end." Roughly 70% of Napa wineries make fewer than 5,000 cases a year, where the average bottle often runs past $100. Most sell directly to the people drinking their wine. Those buyers are a distinct population, and nobody has talked to them seriously.
Until now. The Goal for the Napa Valley Wine Study
As of July 2026, I've completed 85 in-depth interviews toward a goal of 250.
Across those conversations, patterns are surfacing. Serious collectors buy for very different reasons, and those reasons fall into recognizable types. Some follow a winemaker the way they'd follow a person, and leave the day that person does. Some buy the place and treat the wine as the souvenir. Some research every purchase like a thesis. Some screen for who made it, and how they farm and behave, before they ever taste it.
I am mapping those patterns into a working framework: a small set of collector types, each with its own logic for why they buy, why they stay, and why they go.
That's the part that matters for a small winery. If you make fewer than 5,000 cases, you can't outspend anyone on marketing, and you don't have to. You have to know who your buyers actually are and what they're responding to underneath the purchase. The framework of the Napa Valley Wine Study that I am developing will give you that. There's already strong quantitative data on this market: the sales numbers, the channel data, the analytics. This sits alongside it. The numbers tell you what's happening. The interviews tell you why. Together they're a way to recognize the collector in front of you and talk to them in language that lands, instead of guessing.
I want buyers' voices loud and clear. And I want the wineries who care about them to hear what they're actually saying. About Me I'm Adrienne D.A. Smith — Managing Partner at Parallel Napa Valley, a small-production winery making fewer than 1,000 cases annually with winemaker Philippe Melka and his Atelier Melka Team. My path here is unconventional. Twenty years in nonprofit fundraising, then a culinary degree from CIA Greystone, then wine. What I brought from fundraising was a framework — specifically the research behind The Seven Faces of Philanthropy, which identified seven distinct donor profiles and transformed how nonprofits understood and communicated with their most valuable supporters. I've been thinking for years about what a version of that research would look like for the high-end Napa wine buyer. This study is the answer. Since entering the wine industry in 2015 I've had a close view of how small, high-end Napa producers understand — and misunderstand — their buyers. The Napa Valley Wine Study exists to close that gap: to give serious wine buyers a voice in shaping the industry that serves them, and to give wineries a portrait of their most valuable customers that goes well beyond purchase history. If you're a serious Napa wine buyer...I'd love to hear from you. Interviews take 45–60 minutes via Zoom and are completely confidential. [Join the Study →] If you work in wine or just want to follow along...Follow my progress on Instagram @napavalleywinestudy, via my name on Facebook or LinkedIn, or sign up for updates on the homepage.
The buyers.
The Napa Valley Wine Study is the first independent qualitative research into the psychology of serious Napa wine buyers. The people spending $100+ per bottle, with real cellars and real opinions about the wineries they love, the ones they've left, and why.
These are in-depth individual interviews. One person, one long conversation, the kind that shows what actually drives a purchase, what builds loyalty, and what makes someone walk away.
And it starts from a premise most industry research skips: $20 a bottle is not "high-end." Roughly 70% of Napa wineries make fewer than 5,000 cases a year, where the average bottle often runs past $100. Most sell directly to the people drinking their wine. Those buyers are a distinct population, and nobody has talked to them seriously.
Until now. The Goal for the Napa Valley Wine Study
As of July 2026, I've completed 85 in-depth interviews toward a goal of 250.
Across those conversations, patterns are surfacing. Serious collectors buy for very different reasons, and those reasons fall into recognizable types. Some follow a winemaker the way they'd follow a person, and leave the day that person does. Some buy the place and treat the wine as the souvenir. Some research every purchase like a thesis. Some screen for who made it, and how they farm and behave, before they ever taste it.
I am mapping those patterns into a working framework: a small set of collector types, each with its own logic for why they buy, why they stay, and why they go.
That's the part that matters for a small winery. If you make fewer than 5,000 cases, you can't outspend anyone on marketing, and you don't have to. You have to know who your buyers actually are and what they're responding to underneath the purchase. The framework of the Napa Valley Wine Study that I am developing will give you that. There's already strong quantitative data on this market: the sales numbers, the channel data, the analytics. This sits alongside it. The numbers tell you what's happening. The interviews tell you why. Together they're a way to recognize the collector in front of you and talk to them in language that lands, instead of guessing.
I want buyers' voices loud and clear. And I want the wineries who care about them to hear what they're actually saying. About Me I'm Adrienne D.A. Smith — Managing Partner at Parallel Napa Valley, a small-production winery making fewer than 1,000 cases annually with winemaker Philippe Melka and his Atelier Melka Team. My path here is unconventional. Twenty years in nonprofit fundraising, then a culinary degree from CIA Greystone, then wine. What I brought from fundraising was a framework — specifically the research behind The Seven Faces of Philanthropy, which identified seven distinct donor profiles and transformed how nonprofits understood and communicated with their most valuable supporters. I've been thinking for years about what a version of that research would look like for the high-end Napa wine buyer. This study is the answer. Since entering the wine industry in 2015 I've had a close view of how small, high-end Napa producers understand — and misunderstand — their buyers. The Napa Valley Wine Study exists to close that gap: to give serious wine buyers a voice in shaping the industry that serves them, and to give wineries a portrait of their most valuable customers that goes well beyond purchase history. If you're a serious Napa wine buyer...I'd love to hear from you. Interviews take 45–60 minutes via Zoom and are completely confidential. [Join the Study →] If you work in wine or just want to follow along...Follow my progress on Instagram @napavalleywinestudy, via my name on Facebook or LinkedIn, or sign up for updates on the homepage.
Photography Credit www.upliftedphoto.com