{"id":81424,"date":"2025-12-04T15:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T15:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/81424\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T15:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T15:42:12","slug":"california-wine-grapes-rot-on-the-vine-amid-declining-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/81424\/","title":{"rendered":"California wine grapes rot on the vine amid declining demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

These days, Americans are drinking less alcohol<\/a>. While that may be a good thing from a health perspective, it\u2019s not great news for California grape growers. Industry groups predict that 2025 will be the smallest harvest<\/a> since the mid-\u201990s<\/a>. Per-capita wine consumption is down about 12%<\/a> since 2019, and for the last few years, that decline has translated to thousands of tons of grapes left rotting on the vines.<\/p>\n

At Bacigalupi Vineyards in Healdsburg, California, not all of the grapes found a buyer this year. That means they went unpicked. Although harvest wrapped up a couple of weeks ago, some of the grower\u2019s Zinfandel vines were still heavy with fruit \u2014 shriveled and moldy after recent rains.<\/p>\n

That was a real shame, considering the high quality of the crop, said third-generation grape grower Katey Bacigalupi Row.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could not have asked for a better vintage,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich also makes it kind of a little bit more unbearable that they’re left on the vine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Row said her family is also planning to rip out a whole section of vines \u2014 something they never do unless the plants are diseased.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Grapes<\/p>\n

Grapes left hanging on the vine at Bacigalupi Vineyards in Healdsburg.<\/p>\n

Tina Caputo<\/p>\n

This kind of thing is happening across California, said Kyle Collins, an operations manager at Allied Grape Growers in Fresno. Collins said growers in the state ripped out almost 40,000 acres of vineyards in the last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout question, this was the most challenging thing that I’ve seen in an agricultural industry, be it grapes or anything else, since I’ve been here,\u201d Collins said. \u201cI mean, it is a crisis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the heart of the issue, he said, is declining demand for wine. Wine has taken a hit in recent years due to competition from other alcoholic beverages and a lack of interest in wine from younger consumers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Adding fuel to the fire, Collins added, are federal government policies that put domestic grape growers at a disadvantage.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t referring to tariffs, which could actually help U.S. growers by driving up the cost of imported wines. Instead, he pointed to regulations that allow big California brands to blend up to 25% cheap foreign bulk wines into their \u201cAmerican Appellation\u201d products.<\/p>\n

The practice is legal, he said, but it cuts into demand for local grapes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is,\u201d Collins noted, \u201cwe’ve kind of hit the wall here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aaron Lange is one of the growers hitting that wall this year. He farms vineyards near Lodi, California, and said that 2025 is the hardest year his family has experienced in almost two generations.<\/p>\n

\"Ripped<\/p>\n

Ripped out vines in Lodi, California.<\/p>\n

Tina Caputo<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past 30 years,\u201d Lange said, \u201cthe cost to farm vineyards has tripled, while the price that we’ve been paid for our crop, for our fruit has fallen to just one-third of what it used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

To keep their farms going, he added, many of the region\u2019s grape growers are replacing some of their vines with more profitable crops. Lange is planting olive trees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly,\u201d he said, \u201cit’s the first time in multiple generations that we haven’t been just grape growers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lange said it\u2019s a necessary \u2014\u00a0but bittersweet\u00a0\u2014 transition.<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These days, Americans are drinking less alcohol. While that may be a good thing from a health perspective,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1955,1630,7,9,8,46507,25955,3945],"class_list":["post-81424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-agriculture","tag-alcohol","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-drinking","tag-grapes","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}