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.
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.
Maybe grow some food that isn’t for cows?
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.
We’re in the MBA Free Market now, where prices never go down ever.
Make Rakija, not war.
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.
Not sure how much it helps, cause now we also avoid American wine in Europe. Probably even more so in Canada.
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).
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
It used to be good like 20 years ago I think
Same! Since about the beginning of the year I always get European wines and Irish whiskey.
I recently bought a Cali red on sale, to cook. It’s not fit for it.
I prefer mead, Soju, or sake in that ABV range
Tej!
Soju is incredible.
Extremely halal.
Grapes are almost $9 a pound. These motherfuckers are out of their mind. A bag of grapes is $15 fucking dollars
Table grapes and wine grapes are not the same thing.
They are the same in the fact that both have been priced to unafordbility.
I bet it helps a lot alienation an entire market to the north.
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
It can also be distilled into just ethanol.
Probably has some uses. Fuel. Disinfectant. Making those little toys of a bird that drinks water.
Making those little toys of a bird that drinks water.
It is decided.
Or turn it into a nice balsamico. Better profit margin than ethanol which can be made from way cheaper ingredients.
Balsamic takes 25 years+ to age.
Better get it started then
Should be enough time to fix the international trade relations that Trump is currently “winning”
Good ones, yes. Industrial, not so much. And wine is no instant turnover, either, so they are used to wait at least a few years.
Exactly!
Yeah; I thought a 20% decrease in sales would lead to a decrease in cost.
When demand goes up, the price goes up.
When demand goes down, the price goes up.
Yeah. The thing about the economy is only the supply side is allowed to win.
You paying the offered price is fair market price setting.
You getting a good deal is THEFT from the hard working business owners.
The really fun thing about the capitalist economy is that only the corporate retail side is allowed to win. The growers are going to get the least, the people who put the label on get the most and the stores get whatever they want.
I used to be able to buy 4L of cask wine for like $3AUD back in the 00s. Bring back the good times (and my youth)!
im still not buying any
businesses: shockedPikachuFace.jpg
Wine is a luxury good, it could damage brand perceptions if they significantly markdown prices. They should bottle and sell it under a different label imo but who knows
I saw a lot of really good wine on steep discount recently at Fred Meyer in wa state.
I was very suspicious, bought a bottle, and it was legit.
Maybe people are moving wine at lower price points into markets that don’t normally overlap to move product while minimizing brand damage?
That’s fundamentally missing the problem- sales of wine are down 1/5. They have a supply chain that isn’t moving. If you offer cheaper wine you likely won’t move enough more to make up the shortfall and the costs of production/storage ect.
Mad Dog 20/26
It’s America wine. Famous for the Californian “Two Buck Chuck”. On the other hand, the Europeans I know complain that wine in the US is overpriced and most of the domestic market is too sweet.
I am not in a region known for producing wine, but for some reason there are still a few “vineyards” here and there. I put vineyards in quotes, because these places will have a few vines out front of them, but you get the sense they’re just there for vibes. It’s mostly fruit wine anyway. That shit is fucking vile, and can only be appreciated by boomers who’ve smoked for 50+ years and can’t taste anymore.
Wine is like $2-5 a bottle in Europe and they also sell more of it there lol
What is this? Civilization? JK
Something tells me that younger generations simply don’t give a shit, it maybe have been a luxury for older generations.
I’ll be honest in high school or college we all would buy the cheapest shit. (millennial). As in the two gallon jugs on the bottom of the shelf. Oh boy the hangovers were intense. And maybe I can’t really tell much of a difference, but I remember I had a seven course paired with wine. All I could think was, yep tastes like wine and sloshed it down and ate the food.
Fuck yeah, bagged wine was a staple of my teens and twenties, that cheap box shit was like party mana, and nothing felt sleezier than sucking on that bag to get every last drop. I do not miss the wine hangover though, good fucking God I’d rather gargle HFA
It’s still luxurious, but younger generations don’t give a shit about it. People are drinking less in general and everything’s overpriced. Like why shell out for wine specifically when there’s so much other alcohol choices that are also cheaper now?
Alcohol, to me, feels like a rare treat kind of choice now for anything pricey, instead of a ‘treat yourself it’s the weekend’ choice.
Cheap wine was my gateway to nicer wines down the line. But I rarely drink or have an excuse to open wines, so I’m no longer the target market for all these nice wines.
Yeah they could trick the consumer in selling under a decoy name like… wait a minute
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.
Warms your heart to see
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.
Nah, you’re fine. Most American farmers voted for Trump anyway.
And how many American farmers do u know? Not a one around me would dare vote against their own interests LOL.
To be fair, I only know about 3, but statistically speaking, rural areas in America tend to lean heavilly Republican.
No need to apologize. The whole American farming industry needs a redo anyway.
Yeah but you (and the farmers) aren’t going to like the redo.
Massive agri-corps have been busily buying up agricultural land as the Tangerine Tyrant’s policies send farmers bankrupt. Gates and Ellison are two of those behind it.
Agribusiness can get fucked. And farmers too. We need to decentralize ag like, yesterday
wine grapes are different varieties than eating grapes. Just like cider apples.
Wasn’t the boycott because of the tariffs?
It was because of the bullying
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.
You’re not special, they’re also trying to destroy the US by any means
(/j obviously, but they are trying to smash and grab literally anything not nailed down)
The US is doing a far better job of destroying itself than any of its enemies could dream of. The US used to be the one smashing and grabbing everything in the world. Now they’ve somehow decided they’re getting ripped off by doing that. It’s pure delusion.
Canada just wants to move on. We don’t care about the US at all. Trump is acting like the ex who dumped us and then gets mad seeing us dating other people.
That was one factor. It is more about the general hostility and aggression the US has shown toward Canada.
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
Trump implemented tarrifs the last time he was President as well, the difference being that he wasn’t (at least openly) doing it to try to annex our country. This time it is very much that, to the point that accepting the last trade deal would have made us a de facto protectorate of the United States.
But in 2016 the tariffs were gone by 2017 because of the damage to the US economy. The difference in 2026 is Trump DGAF about the US economy.
Seems like a good time to start making a fuck tun (~million butt loads) of brandy and dump excess inventory into that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_(unit)
1 Million Wine Butts = 126,000,000 US gallons / 105,000,000 Imperial gallons
Extra fun math problem. 1 liter of Brandy often requires 2 to 3 liters of wine. How much wine is needed to make 1 fuck tun of brandy?
Given 1 fuck tun ≈ 1,000,000 wine butts.
1,000,000 wine butts = 126,000,000 US gallons = about 477,000,000 liters of brandy.
If 1 liter of brandy requires 2-3 liters of wine, then:
477,000,000 × 2 = 954,000,000 liters of wine 477,000,000 × 3 = 1,431,000,000 liters of wine
So, to make 1 fuck tun of brandy, you need roughly 954 million to 1.43 billion liters of wine.
That is about 382-572 Olympic swimming pools of wine. Or, more scientifically, about one fucking billion liters of wine.
2 to 3 fuck tuns[sic]
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??
