Published by Napa Valley Features this morning.
Dont think thatās the link you wanted to send.
The recently released Preliminary 2023 California Grape Crush Report reveals soaring grape prices in Napa Valley. Exploring further, other reports flash warning signs and reveal conflicting trajectories: While grape prices, particularly for premium varieties such as cabernet sauvignon, are skyrocketing, thereās a notable decline in demand for the wines produced from these expensive grapes. Given these contrasting indicators, it becomes increasingly crucial to determine if this continued surge in grape prices represents lasting growth or a bubble on the verge of bursting.
Iām not sure how that happened. My apologies.
Thank you Shan_A!
That is the final report from last year - March of 2023. Is there a more recent one?
The link is incorrect - the information is from the preliminary 2023 report that just came out on Friday. Here is a link to the pdf for 2023:
This has a lot more info than any of you might want to see but just note that District 4 is Napa
Cheers
The grape crush report is the manual that wineries and growers use to determine pricing and overall trends moving forward. One of the more useful aspects is it provides the weighted average price paid for over all grape varieties for every county in CA. If you want to know the weighted average price for dolcetto was in Amador county, youāll find it.
Being a grower in Mendocino county we were always quite envious of growers in other regions. Sonoma Chard average would often be 30-40% higher than our county.
Itās always interesting to see just how much wine gets made out of grapes that donāt get mentioned on labels - see French Colombard holding down the #3 spot and Rubired at #7.
Does @Adam_Frisch know that heās making wine out of āOther tableā grapes? Is that a designation you can put on a label?
French Colombard is a workhorse white that is āessentialā in a lot of mass market white blends. And Rubired, developed by UC Davis, is a red tincture variety (the pulp is colored), making it very valuable as a red blender (and as one of the main grapes mega red is made from IIRC.
And itās interesting to see grapes that were considered āotherā begin popping up in the grape crush report each year. Some that Adam works with will probably always be in the āotherā category but there are others that only a year or two ago that were other (picpoul blanc, clairette) that are not showing up listed individually.
Cheers
I knew about French Colombard, but I didnāt realize Rubired was a teinturier.
āOther Red Wineā and āOther White Wineā both include a couple of traditional wine grapes Iāve seen here and there in CA (by Adam and others), but his Flame Tokay is the only one in the āOther Tableā listing which Iāve heard of being made into wine here.
I have been a client of the Ciatti Companies for a long time. I do not think I have ever posted a quote from one of their market reports before, but will make an exception this time:
āInquiries have been made into Napa Cabernet,
but mostly at pricing lower than where the market
currently sits. Sellers are, however, showing flexibility in
accommodating interest.ā
Dan Kravitz
Iāve had some excellent wines made partly or mostly from Clairette, but am emphatically not a fan of Picfoul.
Dan Kravitz