Tuesday, October 8, 2013

El Dorado Wine Grapes Target Artisan Wine Niche


Here in El Dorado County, news about worldwide wine consumption growth and California’s shrinking share (Wine Industry FinancialSymposium) was not too surprising to us.  We know about the limitations of producing wine grapes that are imposed by available, appropriate farm land.  We live this every day.

“We just can’t farm at the scale needed to compete with large multinational operations,”  said Elizabeth Standeven,  president of the El Dorado Wine Grape Growers Association.  “We see that the “artisan” wine niche seems to be expanding along with the broader world consumption increases, and our El Dorado wine grapes are primarily targeted at mid to upper level artisan winemakers.”

photo courtesy www.news.com.au
“Consumption is increasing around the world, especially in China and there are many producers around the world (Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, and China etc) that are ramping production to try to meet demand.  Large multinational wine producers are trying to meet this demand with grape juice sourced from around the world bought in shipping container-sized lots at $1-$3 per gallon prices.”

“Yes, California’s ability to produce grapes is limited and will continue to be limited by available land, and increasingly water, and competition with other value crops (mostly nuts right now) for prime farm land,”  Elizabeth noted.

“And if at the end of the day our vineyard values go through the roof… well, yeah on that!  It might be the first time someone was ever able to make real money through farming.”