California prepares for record grape shortage
The 2025 California grape harvest is expected to be the lowest produced by the US state for nearly 50 years, down 24% on last year’s crop, writes Ron Emler.
California’s wine industry is forecast to be heading from one crisis to another – but at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Following the glut of unsold grapes in the past two years, industry experts predict that when the 2025 harvest is finally counted, the figures will show that the state to have produced its lowest harvest for almost 50 years.
Industry analyst John Moramarco has calculated that the 2025 crush may be as low as 2.25 million tons, which, if confirmed when the state publishes its final figures next month, would be 24% below last year’s harvest and the smallest crop since 1980.
It would also be the lowest since 2018 when growers were struggling to meet demand from wineries and in stark contrast to 2024 when the slump in consumer demand, especially at the commodity end of the market, left a reported a 30% of the Sonoma crop unsold.
Vineyard woes
California’s growers grubbed up 38,134 acres of vineyards between October 2024 and August 2025, according to Natalie Collins, President of the California Association of Winegrape Growers.
Others left their vines untended or left the land fallow in the hope of producing better crops as and when market demand stabilises.
Yet despite that action, reports now suggest that many vineyards left half of their grapes unharvested in 2025 as wineries struggled with excess inventory and weak demand.
Supply pendulum
Consequently, Moramarco predicts that later this year the supply pendulum will have swung to the opposite extreme and wineries may struggle to find acceptable supplies.
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“In June or July of this year we could see wineries needing grapes and not being able to find them”, he said.
Meanwhile, official figures illustrate the changing patterns of demand for alcohol in the US.
In the past 10 years, domestically produced wines have seen their market share cut from 64% in 2018 today 56% in 2025.
In 2025 overall win sales fell by 3%, with demand for spirits falling by 2.1%.
Yet the Bureau of Economic analysis shows overall alcohol spending rising by about 4% during the year as consumers moved up the price and quality scales but bought fewer bottles.
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