Crushing it—grape tonnage increases in 2021 harvest
this point, because the current state of the market is that it’s in balance.” Needham said two years of short crops and thepandemichavehelped toclearout the inventory of bulk wine. His employer has 10milliongallons for sale inCalifornia now, downfrom22milliona fewyearsago. In 2020, “wewere sitting on a lot of bulk wine available, andwe were backed up in inventory,” Needham said. Then COVID sent everyone home and retail sales took off, he added. “That really helped us clean up the bulk
inventorythatwesawfrom2018,whichwas the record, the biggest crop that California eversaw,wherewineriesgotmorewinethan theywantedorneeded.Ittookacoupleyears toworkdownonthat inventory,”hesaid. Prices paid to grape growers rose in 2021, although that comes with a catch. Napa County had the highest average grape price in the state at $6,090.55 per ton—a rise of 32.5% from2020. District 3, composedof SonomaandMarincounties,
ByKevinHecteman JohnnieWhite is anything but crushed by the news contained in the 2021 grape- crush report. “It’s a grower’s market,” said White, a NapaCountyvineyardmanagerandmem- ber of theCaliforniaFarmBureauBoardof Directors. “There’s lotsofwineries looking for fruit. We’re looking to tie up long-term contracts at thesegreat prices thatwehave right now. There’s a lot of buyers out there looking for fruit.” The California Department of Food and Agriculture’s preliminary 2021 report shows a total statewide grape crush of nearly 3.86 million tons, up from 3.6 mil- lion tons in 2020. Winegrapes accounted for about 3.6million tons, while table and raisin grapesmade up the remainder. The singlemost productivedistrict in the statewasDistrict 13, composedofMadera, Fresno, Alpine, Mono and Inyo counties, alongwithKings andTulare countiesnorth ofNevadaAvenue.Thesevineyardsaccount- ed for 1.2milliontonsof grapes crushed. Napa County, which by itself compris- es District 4, saw 117,701 tons of grapes crushed in 2021, according to the report. “We didn’t havemuch of a crop in 2020 due to the fires,” White said. “We had a little bit better crop last year, but still not a great crop due to the drought. We’re at two real short years here inNapa for fruit. Wineriesneed fruit bad, and theprices are showing that.” Mike Needham of Novato-based TurrentineBrokerage saidwhite grapes in thevalleywerehardto find if abuyerdidn’t already have themunder contract. “The white varieties, especially down in the southern valley, there was very lit- tle of those available on the spot market,” said Needham, a broker who works in the Central Valley. “Wineries were forced to look at other alternatives, and so they looked at Thompson seedless grapes,” which otherwise would have become rai- sins,headded. “Nowthey’regoingforwine, and that’s an85%increaseoff of a five-year average,”Needhamsaid. “Withthescarcity of thewhitewinevarietiesavailable,winer- ieswereforcedtolookatotheralternatives.” Needham said he thinks this will con- tinue into 2022, as a large number of mul- tiyear contracts have been tendered over the past couple of years. “The best growers are getting the win- eries that arewilling to forwardcontracts,” Needham said. “Say stuff is coming out of contract after 2022. The wineries say, ‘Hey, we like that grower.We like thequal- ity of the fruit. We have one more year in the contract; let’s go ahead and forward contract on thosedeals andextendout the term.’ That way, those grapes aren’t going tocomeoutof contract, andthewinerycan rely on that supplymoving forward.” Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers in Fresno, said the 2021 total is in line with his projection, and noted that from 2016 to 2019, the crush exceeded 4 million tons.
“We cameoff of the2019 cropwitha ter- rible oversupply,” Bitter said. “Thenwe’ve had these two short crops, but our acre- agebasehasn’t changedsignificantly, and it hasn’t been reduced to the extent that we have been indicating that we should for longer-term industry balance. That’s almost like a secondary conversation at
See CRUSH, Page 20
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