North Bay Business Journal

NORTH COAST — Many wine industry experts figured the 2012 winegrape harvest was going to be the biggest in several years and refill grower pockets after two smaller crops, but the first official tally of the crop released Friday suggests it was the biggest ever, even crushing the giant 2005 harvest in value and tonnage.

SANTA ROSA — While the 2012 winegrape harvest in Sonoma County appears to have been among the county’s largest ever, the market for grapes continues to be active early in the 2013 buying cycle, yet rising costs and uncertain ability to increase retail prices is crushing wine producer margins, according to industry supply and finance experts at a major seminar.

Hot topics in the North Coast wine business in 2012 were rapid grape and bulk-wine inflation as bottle sales outstrip anticipated supply, an unexpectedly big, “perfect” harvest and a string of mergers and acquisitions. Dominating 2013 likely will be moderating supply pricing and accelerating M&A activity, according to experts.

More than half the 2012 North Coast winegrape crop is off the vine and most of the rest is expected to be arriving at wineries by early November.

Many North Coast growers and wineries were surprised to find the crops were much bigger than expected around the beginning of the season.

After three straight years of harvests delayed and reduced by unwelcome weather, North Coast winegrape growers see signs of brighter prospects for a 2012 crop that could be, thankfully, average-sized and on time.

NORTH COAST — The first official tally of the impact of the stormy 2011 winegrape season is in: North Coast vintners crushed 11.8 percent fewer tons last year than in 2010, and the value of the 2011 crop at nearly $848 million was 6.9 percent smaller than the year before, despite average per-ton prices rising 5 percent to 10 percent last year, according to preliminary state figures released today.

SANTA ROSA — The tightest inventory of top varieties of wine available for purchase in bulk in a dozen years and a dwindling supply of those winegrapes could extend the rise in pricing for those fine-wine components into this year, but wineries are hard-pressed to pass those cost increases to consumers who are continuing to look for discounts, according to experts at a major local wine industry seminar this morning.

Unless the global and U.S. economies weaken, wine industry experts predict 2012 could be the year of the vineyard, considering a number of fine wine producers have worked through ample inventories, wine sales continue to grow and few new vines are going into the ground.

Winegrape gowers already are concerned about late ripening fruit caused by the summer’s cool weather.

SACRAMENTO — Large scale importation of bulk and bottled wine helped boost total U.S. shipments by an estimated 2.1 percent last year, but wineries heavily impacted by shifting consumer demand may have to wait until 2011 for significant market improvement, an expert said at a major industry symposium here this morning.

NORTH COAST – The 2009 winegrape crop in the region now is thought to be not as big as had been feared earlier in the growing season, but it is big enough for grapes still awaiting a home.