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.
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
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)!
It can also be distilled into just ethanol.
Probably has some uses. Fuel. Disinfectant. 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!
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
Mad Dog 20/26
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 was a like rising from the dead the next morning and of course the whole day is wasted.
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.
I agree on that; one of my favorite beers went from ~$20 for a 4 pack to $40. I couldn’t believe it. I tried fancy wines because of just being in certain places but never really got into it. Same with hard liquor, I like a fancy brand but eventually they all started to taste indifferent. It’s like one time I had a $60 glass of some fancy whiskey, I had no idea of the price but work paid for it, and I was like that’s not bad until I saw the bill.
Yeah they could trick the consumer in selling under a decoy name like… wait a minute
Wine is like $2-5 a bottle in Europe and they also sell more of it there lol
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.
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.
All alcohol saw a large rise in costs. Beer has gotten ridiculous. As far as I am concerned, they did this to themselves.