Demand for Premium Fruit Causes Shortages, Price Hikes : Grapevine Planting Rises Sharply
California grape growers, responding to strong demand from wineries for premium grapes, substantially increased their plantings of grapevines this year, and nurseries had demands for twice the amount actually sold.
Major grapevine nurseries said the boom in the so-called “pop-premium”--primarily Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon--wine market has created a shortage of premium grapes and has forced prices up. And nurseries throughout the state reported record demand for all varieties of benchgrafts of grape cuttings and rootstock.
Sonoma Grapevines Inc., the largest grapevine benchgraft operation in the country, was so inundated with demand that it increased production 45% over 1987.
“Demand was so high we could have done 4 million benchgrafts this year if we had had the stock,” said Rich Kunde, owner of Sonoma Grapevines. “We could have done 2 million of Chardonnay alone. And the demand looks just as high for next year.”
Glen Stoler, owner of Sun Ridge Nursery in Bakersfield, agreed: “Demand for next year is just as great as it was this year. We’re almost sold out for 1989. We could have done much more, but I’m not a speculative grower.”
He pointed out that it takes two years for grape cuttings and rootstock to be “married” into a benchgraft that can be planted in a vineyard, so often orders for certain varieties are placed two years before the need.
All Related Sales Up
“I usually guess pretty well,” Kunde said, adding that demand increased even faster than he anticipated. Sonoma Grapevines, which sold 1.4 million benchgrafts in 1987, sold 2.1 million this year. Kunde said he had one order for 1.2 million benchgrafts from one client, another order for 600,000 benchgrafts and “a half dozen at 250,000.” But he said lack of available rootstock prevented him from increasing sales faster.
Stoler said Sun Ridge sold 1.3 million benchgrafts this year, nearly half of it Chardonnay. Leider Ranches and Casa Verde Grapevines, affiliated nurseries in Zamora near Sacramento, said they sold about 500,000 benchgrafts this year, led by equal amounts of Chardonnay and Cabernet.
At Gino’s Nursery, a large Madera firm, “Chardonnay and Zinfandel are the varieties that seemed to be pretty brisk,” said Marguerite Noni, who said sales of all wine-grape material was up.
Even experimental rootstock and other plant material that won’t produce vines for years were in demand. The Foundation Plant Materials Service at the University of California, Davis, said it sold 80,000 dormant, unrooted, ungrafted grape cuttings, an increase of 40% over 1987.
There are no hard figures for the total number of benchgrafts sold in the state this spring, but estimates of nurseries interviewed indicated that about 8 million benchgrafts were sold. That amount would equate to about 15,000 acres of vineyard land. All nurseries said they felt that a large percentage of the benchgrafts bought were for new vineyards. They said only a small percentage was for replanting of old vineyards.
Changes in Variety
Stoler and Kunde both said heavy plantings in the central part of the state account for much of the benchgraft sales. Stoler added that Monterey County also is increasing its wine-grape acreage.
The increase in vineyard land runs counter to the decline in grape acreage in California recently. The California Agricultural Statistics Service said that in 1986 the state had a total of 327,777 acres of wine grapes, including 15,557 acres in young vines not yet bearing fruit. In 1987, the total acreage figure dropped to 323,533 acres, with non-bearing acres increasing to 19,447 acres.
This indicates an increasing change from one variety to another.
Of the new vineyards being planted, wine industry sources said the following growers were planting large new vineyards:
- Fred Franzia is reportedly putting in more than 1,000 acres at the northern end of the San Joaquin Valley.
- Wine World, the parent company of Beringer Vineyards in the Napa Valley, is replanting large, recently acquired acreage in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Sonoma counties.
- Sutter Home Winery in the Napa Valley has aggressive planting plans for Glenn and Colusa counties.
Kunde pointed out that another reason new benchgrafts are needed is to combat a serious infestation of nemetodes, especially severe in Lodi and some older Napa Valley districts, with the use of nemetode-resistant rootstocks.
