California’s wine grape crushers squished less and charged more in 2022 compared to the year before.
According to the 2022 preliminary Winegrape Crush Report issued by the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture, 3.3 million tons of grapes were crushed for wine last year across the 17 districts in California. That’s a 7.8 percent decrease from the 3.6 million tons crushed in 2021.
There was a price hike, too: In 2020 and 2021 the average price per ton in the state was $677 and $900, respectively. In 2022, the cost jumped to $930. While inflation is impacting wineries, Ciatti Global Wine and Grape Brokers spokesperson Todd Azevedo said it hasn’t necessarily impacted the price of grapes, which takes a few years to adjust.
Santa Barbara County falls in District 8 with San Luis Obispo County, and they mirrored state trends. The volume of crushed grapes fell by 20 percent in 2022 compared to 2021, while the average price per ton soared to $1,833—an almost 8 percent increase.
“The last three harvests [2020, 2021, and 2022] have all been short,” Azevedo said.
A “short” harvest refers to a yield of grapes that were lower than expected, he added.
“It’s hard to say what the average crop would be, but the growth was underwhelming through the seasons the past three years,” he said.
Changes to the environment and climate impacted wine grape yields in 2022, something many District 8 winemakers experienced firsthand, said Audra Cooper, the Central Coast grape broker for Turrentine Brokerage.
“The drought specifically and the heat in late summer were majorly impactful. Had it not been for the late August heat, we would have been closer to an average crop,” Cooper said.
Extremely high temperatures can dehydrate grapes, causing them to raisin and leaving them unusable in most cases, but every winery has its parameters on how many raisins they will tolerate in their harvest, she said.
“Going into 2023, we’re seeing similar trends in that there’s much less available supply in comparison to the past five years,” she said.
Often with low supply levels and fewer grapes produced, Santa Barbara County grapes for wines like sauvignon blanc, syrah, chardonnay, pinot noir, and cabernet sauvignon experienced higher demands, Cooper said.
“[With] chardonnay, the District 8 crop was down 29 percent from 2021, and the pinot noir crop was down 22 percent from the 2021 crop. The price on chardonnay, however, was up 10 percent, hitting $1,627.16, the highest it has been … since we’ve been tracking in 2000,” she said. “There’s a lot of historical numbers when you compare to our 20-plus year history of tracking. It’s generally positive for price, but not in all cases, [and] negative as far as crop size.”
Moving forward, many wineries started the year with lower available grape inventory for the 2023 vintage than what they’ve had in more than five years, and Cooper said that will likely continue unless early estimates—which will be ready in May and June—show a better than average crop.
“Our market can flip very easily and quickly, but in 2023 it’s unlikely that the market for grapes will change dramatically without having a large crop in combination with good case sales,” she said.
This article appears in Feb 23 – Mar 2, 2023.
