California Has Smallest Wine Grape Crush in 20 Years

California wine grape growers, who have been drowning in wine for several years, got some welcome news this week, as this year’s crush is the smallest since 2004. The 2024 crush totaled 2,918,158 tons, down 25.2% from the 2023 crush of 3,899,631 tons, according to the California Department of Food & Agriculture’s Preliminary Grape Crush Report for 2024.

Red wine varieties accounted for the largest share of all grapes crushed, at 1,438,527 tons, down 27.1% from 2023. White wine varieties crushed totaled 1,405,119 tons, down 18.0% from 2023.

The 2024 average price of all varieties was $992.51 per ton, down 4.5% from 2023, but higher than previous years. Average prices for the 2024 crop by type were as follows: red wine grapes, $1,311.15, down 2.6% from 2023; white wine grapes, $698.61, down 4.8% from 2023; raisin grapes, $295.05, up 2.4% from 2023; and table grapes, $150.40, down 22.6% from 2023. For more, check with the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The California  wine grape crush of 2,843,646 million tons was below wine broker Ciatti Company’s pre-harvest projections of 3.1 to 3.2 million tons.

The crush was lower than even the low end of Ciatti’s estimated range, which surprised the company’s analysts, and indicates that – as well as yields being down – there was potentially a larger amount of grapes unpicked than previously estimated. Other observations of the Ciatti company include:

• The average tonnage price overall was down -6.8%, which does not reflect the grapes unpicked because they had no market.
• ‘Cabernet’ production was down -30.8%, with a total of 447,919 tons in 2024 versus 646,941 tons in 2023.
• ‘Chardonnay’ production was down -19.7%, totaling 524,111 tons versus 651,610 tons in 2023.
• ‘Pinot Noir’ production was down -25.9%, totaling 213,394 tons versus 285,806 tons in 2023.
• The harvest in District 8, Santa Barbara/San Luis Obispo counties (which includes Paso Robles) was down -40.3%