North Coast grape growers finding fewer buyers for this year's crop
California’s North Coast wine grape producers are finding fewer buyers for their sizeable crop this year, with the harvest currently at around the half way point.
“Crops in general are picking over estimates,” Brian Clements of Marin County-based Turrentine Brokerage told the North Bay Business Journal. “Wineries for the most part are not taking overages.”
Generally grape contracts have maximum tonnage clauses which can limit what a winery will buy based on forecasts during the season he added. Clements said he had Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to sell, claiming that the surplus wine was remaining unsold because of issues with winery tank space.
While sales of bottled wine are on the increase, they are not as strong as earlier forecasts had indicated, so the market for excess grapes has slowed down a bit, he said.
The North Coast wine grape crop, excluding part of western Solano County was nearly 465,000 tons, down 7.8% from 2016 and 5.9% down from the five year average according to the US Department of Agriculture. Sonoma and Napa both had below average yields last year of almost 205,000 tons and 141,600 tons respectively.
Napa County growers started picking Cabernet Sauvignon, the appellation’s top variety in volume terms in late September, and according to Heidi Solinger of the Napa Valley Grapegrowers trade body the forecasted temperatures over the next few weeks of daytime high temperatures in the high 70s to low 80s will result in the harvest wrapping up by the end of this month.
Sam Kaplan, vineyard manager and winemaker for Arkenstone Vineyards in the Howell Mountain appellation of Napa County, said the “ideal” growing season this year has resulted in the high-quality fruit that had been anticipated going into harvest.
“The weather has been perfect — overall, consistently warm, allowing for complete fruit development,” he said. “With these ideal conditions, we’ve been able to space out our picks and steadily bring in fruit.”
Sonoma County is about half way through its harvest, after a rush at the beginning of this month, according to Karissa Kruse, president of the Sonoma County Winegrowers trade group. “The growing season before the rains has been pretty ideal, without much pressure,” said Kruse.
But as the forecast showed rain coming at the beginning of this month, North Coast growers were spurred into action to bring in as much fruit into wineries as possible before the rain fell on October 1st, prompting concerns over rot.
“Like every year, it wouldn’t be a harvest without a tangle with Mother Nature, but the growers are back at it, and the grapes are doing well,” Kruse said.
Some early ripening Pinot noir and Chardonnay grapes still remained on the vines in Napa and Sonoma counties last week which are more susceptible to problems with rot because of their thinner skins.
Now, growers are moving into picking the slower maturing red varieties, namely Merlot, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon.