California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

(AP) — It’s harvest time in California wine country, but many growers are struggling to sell their grapes as changing drinking habits have caused demand to plunge. The decline is forcing some growers to tear out vineyards that their families have grown for generations. Wine sales have decreased by more than 20% over a five-year period, causing prices paid for grapes to drop and prompting California growers to take roughly a quarter of the state’s vineyards out of production.

Many growers are having to decide whether to harvest at a loss, leave grapes on the vine or replace vineyards with crops more in demand such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios and olives. Third-generation grower Bill Berryhill said it means another year of losing money and wasting hundreds of tons of healthy grapes. “It’s just sickening,” said Berryhill, standing in a vineyard of unsold merlot grapes.

“You raise a beautiful crop, and it’s really a nice vintage this year, and you drop it on the ground. All your work is just down the toilet.” Berryhill, who owns Berryhill Family Vineyards near Lodi in the San Joaquin Valley, said he can’t find buyers for grapes grown on 200 of his 500 acres (202 hectares). He plans to remove 50 acres (20 hectares) of vineyards when the harvest season is over.

It’s just a matter of how much,” Berryhill, 68, said. “This has been a big loser for three years now.” Grape growers take vineyards out of production At its peak during the pandemic, California had almost 600,000 acres (242,811 hectares) of vineyards, but farmers have removed or stopped actively growing wine grapes on roughly 25% of that land, said Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers, which represents about 500 farmers statewide. This year, about half of California’s wine grape crop entered the harvest season without contracts with buyers, compared with 70 to 80% with contracts in a typical year, Bitter said.

If they’re lucky, growers can sell their uncontracted grapes at a loss to buyers making concentrated syrup. Even as growers have abandoned or removed tens of thousands of acres of vineyards in California in recent years, too many grapes are still being produced, Bitter said. “The market is just so depressed that it’s difficult to grow them profitably,” he said.

It’s still continuing to decline.” Kyle Collins, a … The decline is forcing some growers to tear out vineyards that… It’s still continuing to decline.”Kyle Collins, a Lodi-based o…