Whats the average price for a ton of high quality pinot noir grapes from Sonoma, Anderson Valley, or Santa Cruz Mountains?
I’m trying to find sources for a small amount of fruit.
thanks!
It is very rare to find A. High quality SCM fruit for sale and B. It available in amounts under a ton.
$3000-$3500 per ton would be standard. Muns might be your best bet, they usually have fruit available and might work in a small quantity
Thanks for your input. It was a long shot for Santa Cruz Mountains fruit, I know.
CWun, don’t totally give up. I’m not sure how it works in SCM, but growers around here are probably unwilling to commit to a small contract this early in the season… especially since it’s really too early to accurately predict harvest size. They’d rather wait and see if they can set up larger contract(s) for all available grapes. But, if you’re willing to stay flexible and uncommitted, you might find what you are looking for closer to harvest. Keep an eye on Wine Business.com’s classifieds or even place your own ad for your desired grapes and tonnage in late August / early September. We’ve been in the situation where we had 8 tons sold but 9 tons we weren’t going to use so loved finding a buyer for that one extra ton.
Your options go up if you’re able to pick up the grapes and are willing to accept the harvest date of other parts of the vineyard.
Good luck.
When you say small, how small are you talking about?
Do you have any track record making wine?
Is this for home winemaking or a commercial project?
There’s a lot of this and that floating around the SCMs this year as operations are dropping (what they think are) their marginal vineyards and owners are ready to work with you. Oftentimes, the vineyards are pretty good, the winemakers that are the weak link. If you have any kind of track record, are looking for at least a ton and pay on time, there are several places I could turn you on to.
Ian
PM sent. thanks.
I would say that starting point for Anderson Valley is $3K, but there is fruit to be had at that.
FWIW we bought SCM Pinot at a vineyard on Summit in Los Gatos last year for $1.50 a lb, I found it on either Winebusiness or Craig’s list forget which at this point.
We only needed 120 lbs as that’s all the carboys we had at the time, so we drove the truck out there, and they dumped 6 5 gal pails for $30 each into our food grade fermentors and we drove back down the hill. They had been stiffed by one of their old customers, rather at the last minute.
We are probably sourcing our Pinot from Carneros this year, and will be getting 1 ton for I am guessing the same general price, but will take pick bins and “do it right”, though it probably won’t be nearly as much “fun”.
