(Wine-Searcher) - While some wines are killing it when it comes to price, for every winner, someone loses out.

It's hardly news that California's top wines are getting more expensive, but what is crystal clear is that some are finding it easier to command an absolute premium than others.

A rundown of California's (read Napa's) most expensive wines should be predictable; after all it would be pretty easy to reel off the Bordeaux and Burgundy equivalents. But it's all change this year, with some big name making scarcely believable price leaps while many other so-called cult wines fall by the wayside.

Around this year's list, the rates of increase in price vary from a vertiginous 73 percent (albeit across two years) to a fall – yes, a fall – of around 21 percent. That latter figure alone should be an indicator that the times are most definitely changing in Napa's sacred acres.