Guessing most winery folks saw this today, but for the grape nerds out there, this is a highly detailed look at how the California wine industry fared in 2024. Prices down, crush down. Red wine grape crush down 27% in one year. Wow.
3 Likes
Not surprised. Itās bleak out there.
Impossible to calculate but, I would to love to know how much fruit was left hanging. Driving through Dry Creek in November and seeing the fruit left hanging was a little ominous. What did it look like in Central Valley, Lake, and Mendocino Counties?
Forgive my ignorance. Is this all or almost all just a decision to produce less wine because of lower demand? Or is there some 2024 vintage/weather/crop dimension to it?
And is this mostly a reduction at the bulk / inexpensive wine level, or is there a big reduction in supply of the types of wines we care about (āpremium winesā or whatever those are called) too?
None of those questions is meant to imply downplaying or dismissing the news or any of the pain out there, I just want to understand better.
8 Likes
I wonder, what happens when half the grape-picking workforce is suddenly gone? ā¦
9 Likes
I have not delved deep into the numbers but there were many factors at play here:
Smaller crop than usual with certain varieties due to weather related issues
A lot of unpicked fruit due to a combination of over-supply and under-demand
We really donāt know how many acres or tons went unpicked and Iām not sure how this can or will be calculated but is obviously a sizable number, moreso in 2024 than any other vintage I can remember.
In addition, these numbers do not take into account the number of tons sold at well below market prices throughout CA, including in Napa, Sonoma, Paso and Santa Barbara Counties at a minimun
Cheers
5 Likes
From what Iām hearing itās mostly the growers of bulk and under-$20 supermarket wines that have suffered the most. Many growers for that market, which includes most of the Lodi-area growers around me, didnāt get their contracts for red grapes renewed if they expired after 2022 or 2023 and couldnāt find buyers. That left a lot of grapes hanging. I have a friend whoās grafting his 34 acres of unpicked pinot noir over to pinot gris because wineries are still taking white. Vineyard prices are falling and youāre seeing young almond trees where there used to be grapes. Premium-priced vineyards arenāt unscathed, but overall doing much better. Hereās a picture from the Borden Ranch AVA (NE of Lodi) from a month or so ago of a doomed vineyard.
3 Likes
How does it affect the health of the vine to have a season unpicked?
Is that a good thing like a day off or a bad thing like skipping a workout or does it matter at all?
1 Like
Iām not a farmer, but I donāt think it affects the health of the vine. A lot of experts on this site can weigh in. The issue with unpicked fruit is the grower has to decide whether to try again the next year (if the grower can even get a contract), pull out the vineyard or let it die. To have a new crop, the vineyard needs to be pruned, prunings picked up, new growth after bud break needs to be tied to trellis, irrigated, decisions made on fertilizer, canopy management, weed management, etc. All cost money without revenue from the previous year, and if thereās no contracted buyer, well ā¦
2 Likes
āInterestingā to hear that such a water-demanding crop as almonds are seeing new plantings in the water-hungry state of California ā¦
6 Likes
Nut trees, almonds in particular, are being planted everywhere in the Central Valley.
I donāt know enough about the markets and water and all, but it seems to be penciling out as the best crop to grow in the Central Valley going back the last decade or two.
A lot of growers around Lodi have access to surface water, either directly from rivers due to water rights dating back more than a century or through irrigation districts. Irrigation districts actually are in pretty good shape near Lodi because of reduced demand over the last 30 years due to conversion of ag land to housing and increased use of drip irrigation. Surface water also helps flush out salts that accumulate from using groundwater. A big issue a bit south of here is the ability to use winter releases from dams to flood orchards and replenish the groundwater table. When dams released water on the presidentās orders last month, water managers wisely captured some of the excess to flood orchards to help recharge the groundwater table. Not one drop could be used to help LA fight fires, and it was water that wouldnāt be available during the summer when itās needed most.
2 Likes
Seems to be. Some folks have planted walnuts, but the prices have been very erratic.
Not necessarily true - many almond farmers have moved away from āflood irrigationā and have moved towards drip irrigation, saving lots of water
2 Likes
Prices for almonds also erratic. Farming anything is similar, plus external factors matter quite a lot.
-Al
1 Like
I hate to see this, but itās reality isnāt it? Replace this same image with some heavily-laden apple trees up in the Yakima Valley here in WA last Autumnā¦with just awful prices, in flat-out didnāt make sense for some farmers to harvest.
Theyāve been ripping out avocado trees in the San Diego County for years because itās highly unprofitable to water them
Another negative factor is the effect of tariffs, whether real or threatened. Lodi wineries just had $3 million worth of orders from Canada canceled (second hand, but reliable).
I think almonds use as much per acre or a bit more as avocados in typical farming.
-Al