Photo by Frank Lopez | From left, wine maker Kevin Lester and Christ Turner, owner of the Wine Bar Bistro, face a market shift in wine consumption that is concerning, but they believe the cycle will turn positive once again.

While the Golden State produces about 80% of the nation’s wine and is the world’s fourth-largest wine producing region, the agricultural, economic and social activities have led to a drop in demand for the alcoholic beverage.

Those shifts in the market have also led to vintners buying less wine grapes—including in the Central Valley.

According to the Grape Crush 2024 report released in March by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, last year’s crush totaled nearly 3 million tons, down from 24.1% from the 2023 crush of nearly 4 million tons.

The average price of all California grape varieties last year was $1,009 per ton, down 2.9% from 2023.

Average price for red wine grapes in 2024 was $1,335 per ton, down 0.7% from 2023. The average price for a ton of white wine grapes stood at $706, down 3.65% from 2023.

District 13, which includes the counties of Madera, Fresno, Alpine, Mono, Inyo Counties and Kings and Tulare counties north of Nevada Avenue, has the largest share of the state crush with 907,220 tons. The average price per ton in the district was $338.64.

Chris Turner, owner of the Wine Bar Bistro in Northwest Fresno, worked for 20 years in the restaurant industry and another 25 years selling wine to restaurants and retailers, which he still does.

Turner said one of the contributing factors to the drop in grape prices is less people drinking wine, especially the younger generations.

“The market is very fractured right now,” Turner said. “You’re even seeing it with the beer companies shutting down and closing up because beer sales are down, and wine sales are down.”

Turner said that even leading wine makers, including E.&J. Gallo Winery, have also had to cut back and cancel grower contracts over the last two years.

He said many growers noted that the wine companies are not even going out to the fields to look at grapes because they don’t need them.

Inputs costs for soil, glass, carboard and labels, most of which comes from overseas, have been seeing price increases in the last few years and recent tariffs continue to “add fuel to the fire,” Turner said.

With current market conditions, there are some growers letting their land go fallow to see if the market bounces back and are trying to save money by not picking.

Some growers are pivoting and planting different crops, Turner said.

Kevin Lester is a local orthopedic surgeon and wine enthusiast who founded his own small winery, Lesterland Winery, in Fresno nearly two years ago.

He has over 40 years of winemaking experience with grapes that he grows, as well as the harvest of other local farmers.

Lester noted that table grapes are more labor intensive than wine grapes and are more unpredictable.

He said about two years ago, Mexico and Chile — with harvests earlier than California — flooded the American market with large volumes of grapes that filled up cold storage facilities.

“Californians that had fresh grapes—there was no storage for them, and it wiped them out. It’s a dynamic market,” Lester said.

With large volumes of grape wines commanding lower prices, Turner predicts in the next few years there will be high-quality boxed wine on the market, which last happened in the 1970s.

Turner said the industry is currently “sitting on their hands and trying to wait out the storm.”

He said the wine market is cyclical, and he’s seen such environments before.

“We are pretty much at the bottom now, so as long as something crazy doesn’t happen economically, you should start to see it slowly pick back up again,” Turner said. “It may only be a 5% year-over-year pickup come the fourth quarter, but it shouldn’t be down again. We can’t decline too much further.”

He said the wine market tends to rebound on a 7-10 year cycle.

Property values for grape orchards are down, which is why many investors are buying land that can be zoned for residential development, Turner said.

Turner said smaller vintners, such as Lester, have an easier time pivoting to the market environment. He believes they’ll be pull through and adapt.
Finding skilled labor is also another challenge for wine makers, especially with more required documentation and higher wages, which has led to more mechanical harvesting, Turner said.

More workers are being driven to unionize, which drives up fees and leads them to “price themselves out,” he added.

Mechanical harvesting leads to a degradation in quality of the grapes, and in turn, the wine.

Since Lester only started his winery two years ago he still considers himself a beginner, with his biggest challenge being marketing, but he is learning something new about making wine every day, and is expecting a good harvest this year come around October.