Winegrape Growers Ready To Plant
June 5, 2013 
At the beginning of every year at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium held each January in Sacramento, Allied Grape Growers President Nat DiBuduo steps to a microphone to give his “State of the Industry” speech, much like the president delivers the “State of the Union.” Unlike the president, however, DiBuduo doesn’t get interrupted by loud bursts of applause. Over the past several years there was no reason to cheer him anyway, not when his message to a room full of winegrape growers was, essentially, “Don’t plant.”
But not this past January. For the first time in many years, DiBuduo told growers that the winemakers are under supplied and it was time to plant again — but only with a contract. One of those growers present was Brad Goehring, who adds that is a very big “but” indeed. Goehring should know. His company, Goehring Vineyards, plants 5% to 10% of the state’s new acreage each year. That adds up to about 23,000 acres through the years in 11 counties in the northern parts of the state, from the Sierra Nevada foothills to Lodi and the North Coast.
Goehring prefers planting on bare ground, but bare ground is in limited supply because there is so much competition. A lot of the San Joaquin Valley’s best ground is along the Highway 99 corridor, which is of course subject to intense urban encroachment. But there’s also competition from growers of other crops, and Goehring says much of the land is snatched up before it even hits the market. “All crops in California are red hot, everything from mandarins and lemons to pistachios, almonds, walnuts, and grapes,” he says. “All commodities are fighting for open land.”
Farming has changed quite a bit since the last winegrape planting boom, back in the 1990s. Goehring notes that some of today’s top-selling crops, like almonds and mandarins, were just marginal crops back then. Just this past year almonds actually passed grapes as the #2 agricultural commodity, behind dairy. “The last time grapes were in short supply, the other crops were either in the dumps or hadn’t hit yet, like almonds,” he notes.
No Small Boom
The reason for all the replanting is a perfect storm of sorts. With growers largely unable to get new contracts with wineries over the previous decade or so, they certainly couldn’t afford to do much replanting. Another factor is the variety mix. Goehring points to Lodi as a good example. A lot of “commodity” varieties such as Chenin Blanc and French Colombard were replaced in the early to mid 1980s with mainstream varieties, the leader being Chardonnay. A lot of those vines are now old and tired, and growers want to replace them anyway with potentially more lucrative varieties.
“Do the math — those vineyards are approaching 30 years old, and their productivity has peaked. But you can’t pull them out and replant when you can’t get a contract,” he says. “Now with new contracts — if the price is right — growers can afford to do something new and fresh.”
Yet another factor causing the replanting boom is the recession, which has meant wineries are less likely to import wine from other countries. The dollar is so weak, foreign product has gotten more expensive, he says.
Finally, there is one other factor. Growers know quite well that this flush period won’t last forever, so you had better replant while you can. It’s unlikely we will see such a combination of favorable factors come together again soon. “From a grower perspective it’s the sun and the moon and the stars lining up,” he says.
While this period won’t last forever, Goehring says there’s no reason it shouldn’t continue for at least a few years. Other prime winegrowing areas in the world have had weather problems, leading to shorter crops. And while you can’t predict the strength of the dollar, consumption of wine is trending upwards. “We will need 20,000 to 25,000 acres (planted annually) just to meet the growing demand, and last year in 2012 there wasn’t enough planted,” he says. “Until these new vineyards get into production, I can’t see meeting demand, so this should last three to four years, and it could be longer.”
Not Too Dense
Interestingly, while the land is getting more expensive all the time because of both urban encroachment and demand from growers of other crops, Goehring says he sees a move away from the super high-density vineyards to a more reasonable density that allows for more mechanization. Until about 20 years ago, 12-foot spacing was the standard, and just about all growers adhered to it. But in the early 1990s there was a spike in demand for wine combined with higher land costs. Soon everyone got away from the then-standard 11- to 12-foot spacing and went to 8 to 10 feet.
People were looking at getting more vines per acre and increasing production. Along with that came a change in training from bilateral sprawl to a vertical system. It didn’t change 100%, but everyone pretty much abandoned 12 feet. “Growers have a tendency to jump on bandwagons when a leader in area makes a change, and a lot of growers did it without much testing in the field,” he says. “Everybody did it because it was the thing to do.”
But the higher density meant they had to change trellising and put canopies in vertical position to get equipment through. You couldn’t farm sprawl on 8 feet mechanically. In warmer areas, you would get too much sun on the south or west side depending on how the vineyard was oriented, hurting quality and yields. Vertical was detrimental in hot areas, so now there’s hardly any vertical being planted in those areas, where they instead use a quadrilateral system or sprawl.
“The trend is going back to 10 or 11 feet spacing,” he says. “Even with the quad system, it’s just a lot easier to get equipment through the vineyard with 11 to 12 feet spacing than it is at 8 feet.”
New Trellising System Tried
A fair number of growers around the state are experimenting with a new approach to trellising that Brad Goehring calls the high wire system.
As with many recent developments in specialty agriculture, the chief advantage of the system is that it reduces the need for labor because the vines don’t require shoot thinning. The high wire system doesn’t need shoot thinning because the cordons will be 65 to 72 inches off the ground, much higher than the 44 to 56 inches the cordons are off the ground in the popular quadrilateral system. In the high wire system, you prune mechanically back to a 4 inch-sized box, leaving most of the wood. A mechanical pruning leaves a square and stays in a box. “It’s all about vine balance and the hope that the vine will find balance,” he says.
The vine will grow the right amount of shoots, says Goehring, because the vine tries to seek balance in nature. Look at a wild vine along a river that is never pruned and has grown up into the tops of the surrounding trees; it has a lot of shoots but few are long. “With the high wire it should stay in balance because the vine won’t throw off long shoots,” he says.
But the system is not without its drawbacks. Its ability to produce tonnage is almost wholly based on the number of degree days. “You probably won’t get ultra-premium wines with the limited outputs they are designed to achieve,” he says. “Expensive wines don’t fit in with that system.”
But Goehring, clearly intrigued, will be trying the system out, albeit on a limited basis. “We’re doing only 3% to 5% of what we plant, and 80% of that is experimental,” he says. “The jury is still out.”
The Honeymooners
The relationship between grape growers and wineries can be likened to a marriage, says Brad Goehring.
“Like in marriage, your relationship ebbs and flows with emotions,” he says. “In this, the ebb and flow is between supply and demand. Sometimes we get along; sometimes there is tension.”
During times when there is a huge supply of grapes on the market, the wineries get kind of picky. But in times like now, when there is an under supply, the wineries are much more lenient about the quality of the grapes, etc.
“They’ve been pretty flexible lately,” he says. “The marriage is good, we’re in a honeymoon stage.”
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