California 2008 Wine Grape Crush Totals Down 6 Percent

Red Wine Grapes Down 9 Percent

In the preliminary crush report released today, the California Agricultural Statistics Service said the 2008 wine grape crush totaled just over 3.05 million tons, a significant decrease when compared to the 3.2 million ton 2007 wine grape crop. The 3 million ton total was not seen as a major surprise, though it was a bit higher than some industry observers had expected.

Tonnage of major wine grape varieties other than Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio was down. Red wine varieties accounted for the largest share of all grapes crushed, at 1,709,040 tons and fell 9 percent compared to 2007.

The 2008 white wine variety crush was essentially flat. It totaled 1,345,112 tons, down 2 percent from 2007, CASS said. Most of that decrease was for Chardonnay, which fell by about 20,000 tons statewide.

"I don't think this changes the direction we were going in," Steve Fredricks of Turrentine Wine Brokerage said of the preliminary crush report. "The light crop will keep things in balance at a time that we're in a recession. But we don't have a lot of new acres to support growth, nor can people afford to put in new acres."

John Ciatti of The Ciatti Company said the report was in line with what players in the industry thought it was going to be. "In the short term, I think we're fine," he said. "If we had a long vintage in this economy it would not be good. Long-term there are some concerns about where some of the grapes are going to come from."

Ciatti noted that at 3 million tons, the industry has roughly the same supply that it had on key varietals in 2002 and that some large wineries have since gone offshore to source grapes for certain generic and less expensive wines.

Cabernet Sauvignon was off 24 percent or roughly 100,000 tons. "That's 84 million bottles," Fredricks noted. "That was spread across all regions and that is one of the most sought after varieties."

Merlot was down 26 percent. Fredricks noted that the Merlot crop was almost half of what it had been a few years ago.

Zinfandel tonnage increased only in areas where it is primarily used for white Zinfandel.

The one red variety that was up statewide was Pinot Noir, which increased 17,000 tons statewide. Much of that increase came from new plantings in the Central Valley, Monterey and Santa Barbara. Surprisingly, Pinot Noir was little changed in Sonoma County, despite considerable frost challenges.

Chardonnay statewide was down by four percent amid tightening inventory and steady sales growth. Though it was down throughout the state, the Chardonnay crush did increase by 13,000 tons in Monterey County, and in the South Central Valley it rose almost 11,000 tons.

Pinot Grigio was up and most of the increase came from the Central Valley. The overall crush was 3,665,375 tons, down less than 1 percent from the 2007 crush of 3,674,453 tons because the raisin and table grape varieties were up sharply from the previous year.

California grape growers received prices in 2008 for red wine, white wine, raisin and table grapes that were, on average, above the 2007 prices. The 2008 average price of all varieties was $544.18, up 4 percent from 2007. Average prices for the 2008 red wine grapes were $642.87, up 3 percent and the average price for white wine grapes was $538.74, up 12 percent.

Chardonnay accounted for the largest percentage of the crush volume with 15.4 percent. As usual, grapes from Napa County received the highest average price, which was $3,390.64 per ton in 2008; up 4 percent District 3 (Sonoma and Marin counties) received the second highest return of $2,235.30, up 7 percent from 2007.

The state-wide 2008 Chardonnay price of $815.00 was up 14 percent from 2007, and the state-wide Cabernet Sauvignon price was $1,098.47 was up 11 percent from 2007. The 2008 statewide average price for Zinfandel was $459.53, down 2 percent from 2007, while the overall Merlot average price was up 9 percent from 2007 at $646.52 per ton.

"We've been growing and consumption has continued to grow," John Ciatti said. "We feel somewhere out there we will need to be planting in key areas and key varietals. That's tough to say today."

Click here for the full report and summary tables:

http://http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Grape_Crush/Prelim/index.asp