Many California growers can’t find buyers as the industry produces more wine grapes than the market wants. Wine consumption is declining globally as people drink less.
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.
Aaaaah how sad…
.
Anyway, how about the weather huh?
Canada’s also not buying as much California wine due to Trump’s trade war and general insulting manner.
And the smell of rot fills the country.
Steinbeck 1939
Then why is everything still $40/bottle? This is some bs “nobody wants to work anymore” logic. I stopped drinking California wine because the prices kept going up but my wages haven’t.
It’s like rent, they can’t drop the price because the price is only ever supposed to go up. They would rather pour it down the drain or sell it to trader joes without a label than sell it for a lower price.
Well, the usual "free market"bullshit would dictate that the price drops until it finds enough demand again. But thanks to whatever bull shit system we currently have the price stays the same and they just write off everything that doesn’t sell and they throw it away.
Make Rakija, not war.
I used to accidentally buy some California wine every now and then when not paying attention and grabbing a selection, it was never that good.
Since trump 2.0 now i check everything to make sure it’s not American. This isn’t really surprising news
Shouldn’t have voted for an orange clown then. Oh well.
French wine is also in decline.
I am not sure the two things are very related in this case. This mostly has to do with Gen Y and A drinking drastically less and boomers and GenX not making up the difference. If anything tariffs on European wine might be helping these wineries.
Yeah my own wine phase lasted about 2 or 3 months of occasional drinking. Each bottle was hit or miss and I wasn’t interested in a new hobby/obsession to keep track of which ones were good. Plus I didn’t like how opening the bottle meant I had to drink it all or waste it within a certain amount of time (whereas beer comes in single drink packages unless you get a keg and spirits don’t really go bad). And the amount of sugar needed to make a wine taste good was enough that occasionally I’d get a headache before a buzz.
Wine isn’t a good option for someone who likes an occasional drink alone (and doesn’t really mean occasionally binge drinks alone).
You are the perfect use-case for a Coravin. Can’t recommend them enough for people who only like to drink a little but still like nice wines. Buy fewer bottles of wine by making them last longer.
Grapes are almost $9 a pound. These motherfuckers are out of their mind. A bag of grapes is $15 fucking dollars
You’d think this would mean wine would get cheaper or something, but actually it means that several thousands of bushels of grapes are going to rot, because capitalism demands profit over common sense
Tariffs have reduced exports, particularly to Canada, which was the largest foreign buyer of American wine.
Uh sure, it was the tariffs, and not the widespread Canadian boycott of American alcohol.
But USA does not need Canada! It’s just money! US doesn’t care about money!
I picked up a bag of grapes in the store on the weekend. Product of the USA, nope. We avoid USA products as much as possible. Sorry to the good Americans.
No need to apologize. The whole American farming industry needs a redo anyway.
wine grapes are different varieties than eating grapes. Just like cider apples.
Wasn’t the boycott because of the tariffs?
The boycott was because of a threat to annex Canada, repeatedly by the US Ambassador Hoeskra, who is an even bigger asshole than Trump, if that were even possible.
Also because the US Government is trying to destroy our country by any means. They still threaten to annex Canada, call our Prime Minister “Governor”, claim Canada isn’t a real country, interfere with our politics and elections, support Alberta and Quebec separatists, and do their best to crush our economy. Then they whine that we’re being mean to them. It doesn’t make us very inclined to send our money to the USA, especially when we can just buy Canadian wine instead.
Ok, but the US has been doing that since the 1950s.
Perhaps, but in their wisdom Trump and his people draw attention to it daily, and they’ve successfully angered Canadians and undermined their own markets by doing so.
No. It’s because of the annexation threats.
Well, I think it was our tariffs that contributed to the Canadian tariffs and also contributed to anti-US sentiment, so it’s sort of truthy. heh
My wife is doing her part to keep that demand up.
Wait until “it” happens and wine sales will go through the roof!
You Jinxed us! Don’t you know any time anyone ever mentions “it”, nothing ever happens??
You are allowed to grow cannabis and hemp instead. it grows right out of the dirt! It’s crazy
Also, please be advised that you can grow a large variety of fruits and vegetables. CHECK IT OUT
Third-generation grower Bill Berryhill said it means another year of losing money and wasting hundreds of tons of healthy grapes.
Learn to code, Bill.
… oh wait
I actually like wine, and weed fucks with my heart rate.
Wine is a terrible waste of grapes anyway.
