We hope everyone had a great Easter Holiday or Passover Celebration.
The timing of the arrival of these holidays in California has finally solidified the fact that winter is over and spring is here. Hopefully, the rains are over. We had the second best year for rainfall all over California. Officially, the drought is over. We do not need any more rain this year or mildew problems may develop. It also has been one of the coolest March’s and early-April in a long time. This contrasts with the warm springs of the last few years. We are anticipating that, in general, agriculture in California is two weeks later than last year.
California Final 2018 Grape Crush Report
The California Final 2018 Grape Crush Report was released a few days ago. The crush was the second highest ever reported. There were slightly over 2,500,000 tons of grapes crushed. The report showed good prices with the increased volume, however, there is a general consensus that prices for some varieties will fall in 2019. Wine sales have increased but at a much smaller percentage compared to the growth of production. Of course, the size of the 2019 crop will have a great influence on the extent of that fall. It will be about three to four weeks before any credible assessment of crop can be made.
Gallo
Another unknown factor in the potential market for wine grapes this coming year will be the effect of Gallo’s purchase of a lot of Constellation’s brands and facilities. In the long run, this should help the wine industry and growers. Gallo’s marketing is phenomenal. Gallo has doubled in size between 1994 and 2005 and then doubled again between 2005 and 2016. It will be interesting what Gallo now does with these brands and facilities.
Finished Wine
We are happy to see a lot of our winery customers are looking for some finished wine. We have samples of wine going all over the country from various sources. The rise in our wine sales reflects, in a lot of instances, that wineries are selling out of the wine made with our grapes and want to make sure they have enough wine on hand to fulfill there needs. Please contact us, if you have some need for finished wines.
Coastal Pinot Noir
We noticed in the March 2019 WINE ENTHUSIAST issue that a 2016 Pinot Noir wine made by Williams Selyem winery received a 95 point rating (link to review here). What makes that great news for us is the source vineyard is the same vineyard where we source our Coastal Pinot Noir grapes. The vineyard is located in District 7, San Benito County.
Old Vine Carignane
Enclosed is a picture of our Mixed Black and Carignane vines. Starting this year we are going to classified these grapes as OLD VINE. They are from a vineyard that was planted in 1954 &1955. We have been dealing with this grower and buying these grapes for over 20 years. They are some of the best Carignanes grown in the State. In all the years we have been harvesting these Carignane grapes, there has never was there ever a hint of mildew (which is common in the variety).
