Vineyard removals have been in the news lately, with stories in the San Francisco Chronicle, Lodi News-Sentinel and Ag Alert. Grapevines are getting ripped out and crushed up into a giant wad of metal-infused wood. It's a sign of hard times for California's wine industry.
It's also not nearly enough, says Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers.
Bitter said in January at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento that California growers need to rip out 50,000 acres of vines this year to bring the state back into equilibrium. Some of that is happening. But it's not going to happen in time to prevent another crop in 2024 that will be much bigger than the market needs.
"As I said from the stage, I don't have any expectation that we're going to pull out what we should pull out," Bitter told WineBusiness. "The reaction just isn't going to be that quick. They're being torn out, but not enough. In the Central Valley, the wineries are as aggressive as anybody in removing vineyards. We've seen a lot of winery-owned vineyards that have been removed or are for sale. That's a telltale sign."
Whether or not the process is full speed, vineyard removal in the San Joaquin Valley is a thriving business right now.
"I know of four big vineyard operations that went out of business in the Central Valley," said Richard Lopez, owner of Apex Farm Solutions in Kerman. "You never used to see that."
Lopez had a machine tearing out a vineyard in Madera as we spoke, and as soon as it was done there, he planned to move it to another vineyard in Kerman. Removal business is brisk.
But, Lopez said, many growers have been reluctant to remove grapevines because they don't have any alternatives to plant.
For years, nut trees were what grapegrowers planted when Muscat or Merlot grapes stopped selling. But since 2021, almond growers in the 8-county San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District have actually removed 3.5 times as many acres -- 144,000 total -- from production as grape growers. Walnut growers have removed another 18,000 acres. The district has subsidized the removal of thousands of acres of citrus and stone fruit trees as well.
"You'd be surprised by how many fields are becoming completely fallow," Lopez told Wine Business. "It's almost like they're getting attacked by different weapons at the same time. I have a client right now who's going to have 700 acres idle. There are almost no viable crops. There's no new contracts for tomatoes. The alfalfa price is in the gutter. We're in a period right now where there's not much room for agriculture."
You'd think growers might be in a hurry to remove vineyards because starting next year, nobody in the air pollution district – which stretches from just south of Sacramento all the way to the outskirts of Los Angeles – will be allowed to burn the vines. Currently, cane-pruned vineyards of up to 100 acres can be burned, while cordon-trained vineyards of up to 250 acres can be burned.
Click HERE to read the full article.