Add to that they are owned by rich people as vanity projects who want their ROI ASAP at levels that healthier margin/growth industries could barely achieve
They say it’s a vanity project and they just love wine…
But yeah, its just another investment.
We end up with bargin bin wine at 10x the price because a rich person who doesn’t know wine is running the business.
Europe has wineries that have existed for decades at least, ran by people who know how to make wine, and how to make a profit for it
For American “boutique wine” I really wouldn’t be surprised if packaging and marketing is a bigger expense than actually making the wine. As other mentioned, lots of Americans are priced out of it, the American economy focuses on selling to the wealthy because no one else has disposal income anymore.
And rich people always just assume that expensive equal better and a rich person knows how to do anything better than someone who actually knows what they’re doing.