Crisis in California wine industry: Unsold grapes and struggling farmers

Fox40.com ^ | September 21, 2025 | Kimberly Cruz

[Red Badger]

Then we won't need illegals to pick them...............

[rod5591]

wine is too expensive. no wonder consumption is down.

[Red Badger]

Gen X, Y, Z don’t much care for wine...........

[Tell It Right]

Newsome is trying to figure out how to force EV drivers to consume grape juice in their cars like ethanol in gas cars.

[Red Badger]

What we basically have here is a supply and demand problem.

Oversupply coupled with little demand and they wonder why............

[zeebee]

All the farmlands in Delaware are now becoming housing developments.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

---- "What we basically have here is a supply and demand problem. Oversupply coupled with little demand and they wonder why............"

If you going to talk sensibly, what hope is there for getting the crowds marching and chanting "la-test thing! la-test thing!"

[Tell It Right]

Serious question: Can the vineyard lands be used to grow something else that will sell? With my decades experience as a code jockey, there have been times when some industries that needed software died down and I had to learn the needs of other industries to keep getting paid for my craft.

I'm sure there are certain limitations to land that's good for growing grapes (i.e. it may not be good for switching to cranberries). But surely that land can grow something else.

[crusty old prospector]

I have never seen so many wineries and vineyards in Texas.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

At some point Sweden was buying up Spanish Wine and using it to fuel their city buses. Might be a good way to use the oversupply as a “Flex Fuel”. :)

[HombreSecreto]

C'mon, man! Nothing beats the wine of the century!

+

[JSM_Liberty]

“Serious question: Can the vineyard lands be used to grow something else that will sell?”

There is more to the wine industry than the land the grapes are grown on.

[kosciusko51]

Wine is overpriced compared to other forms of alcohol.

And it seems drinking is not in fashion with the younger generations.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

When has there ever NOT been a crisis in California wine country? Apart from a few large commercially wineries, owning a vineyard has always been a vanity hobby for the rich that is a financial blackhole.

[larrytown]

[jerod]

They don’t drink wine and they don’t drink beer... They all want soda pop booze... In the past young women typically drank wine and men drank beer... Now they both go for soda pop booze... It taste like soda pop and they get drunk off it... Kind of like lemon-gin without the bad taste and puking that results from drinking lemon-gin.

[Red Badger]

Of course it can be re-allotted to other crops. But that would take a while................

[Carry_Okie]

wine is too expensive. no wonder consumption is down.

"Two Buck Chuck" (Charles Schwab) is grown in California, it is not expensive, and is very good at the price point.

[Red Badger]

‘Supply & Demand’ is a Capitalist thingy.

They don’t understand Capitalist thingies..............

[Bookshelf]

California wines are indeed overpriced. The big box stores are selling quality Argentine Malbec for less than ten bucks. There is nothing comparable with a USA label.