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.”
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| 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.”
