Posted on 09/23/2026 9:28:49 AM PDT by DFG
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. It’s sad. 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.
“I will lose money for sure. It’s just a matter of how much,” Berryhill, 68, said. “This has been a big loser for three years now.”
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.com ...
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If there is no demand, they should stop whining.
Young people don’t drink wine.
They eat cannabis gummies.
Gotta be the boomers dying off or cutting back for health reasons. Gen Xr’s don’t have the money.
Make no alcohol wine then. There probably is a market for it.
Gen Xers have money. They just spend it on frivolous stuff.
I think many would say that wine IS ‘frivolous stuff’.
Ha, I see what you did. Bravo.
"Could wine provide Australia's next source of biofuel?"
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/595464/could-wine-provide-australia-s-next-source-of-biofuel
One would think Chardonnay and other white wines ought to have a good market among AWFLs.
“nice vintage”
I look forward to helping out, glass by glass.
They could send the California Raisins on tour. They could sing “Abraham, Martin and John.” Kill two birds with one stone.
They eat cannabis gummies.
I am a Finance Director for a Town. Our share of ABC Revenues has dropped. Young people do not socialize like I did when I was young. So not drinking liquor.
And yes. Gummies and smoking lots of weed. I smell it everywhere I go.
I recently tried a couple of non-alcohol red wines. Terrible. Just fruit juice. Yet non-alcohol beers can be quite good. The wineries need to do more work here to remove the alcohol without removing the flavor. I’d be a customer.
They could sell them as grapes, raisins, or grape jelly. I haven’t used or followed grape prices because some varieties give me canker sores but are prices down?
‘ They could sell them as grapes, raisins, or grape jelly’
That’s right.
Definitely.
I paid $1.76 a pound at HEB in Lubbock, TX three weeks ago. That sounds pretty low.
I do not know if wine grapes are different then grapes you eat whole.
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