North Coast vintners scramble as they await barrels left at Port of Oakland

With the grape harvest ramping up across the North Coast, local wineries are confronting a new challenge that has nothing to do with drought or wildfires.

This problem is of the bureaucratic variety: delays in obtaining new barrels because of a logjam at the Port of Oakland.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, on Aug. 15 wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom on the topic. He noted that local cooperages are waiting up to three weeks on average to receive barrels that are being processed through the Port of Oakland.

“I have been told that between 20,000 and 30,000 barrels are waiting to be released. Some of these containers are sitting in areas of marine terminals that are not easily accessible,” Thompson wrote.

The issue is top of mind for Barrel Associates, a Napa-based cooperage that has thousands of oak barrels from France that have been at the port for weeks, said Lizette Jaeger, general manager.

“A typical transit time is 45 days, and this year it has been 130 days. You can’t make up that kind of time,” Jaeger said. “You can’t ask Mother Nature to wait.”

Vintners were hopeful that Thompson’s letter and other efforts from local officials could break the logjam and help avoid a scramble for alternatives, such as using old barrels, which would be a worst-case scenario.

A port spokeswoman said she couldn’t address specifics on the backlog but noted that containers are not being removed quickly enough at Oakland to make room for new cargo. The current estimate is that 40% of products are sitting for more than a week.

The port of Oakland has been hit by a slowdown in past weeks over a trucker protest on AB5, the California law that makes it more difficult to be classified as an independent contractor as opposed to a company employee.

“Ships are waiting to enter the Port of Oakland due to imports sitting idle at the marine terminals,” said Bryan Brandes, maritime director for the port, in a statement. “We are working with our stakeholders to clear out the cargo.”

The issue is most pressing for those picking chardonnay grapes that go into barrels for still wine. Those grapes are picked before most red varieties. The season for such fruit typically kicks off around Labor Day. In addition, the juice from the chardonnay grape goes into such barrels much more quickly than those that are processed from red grapes.

“If anyone has got a big-barrel chardonnay program going on, they are probably quite nervous,” said Mike Martini, an owner of Taft Street Winery in Sebastopol. His winery has about 30 barrels that are scheduled to come in at the end of the month, but his winemaker does not need them immediately.

Michael Haney, executive director of the Sonoma County Vintners trade group, said he has heard from “a handful” where the topic is pressing as they are about to pick chardonnay grapes. His group and other winemakers have reached out to elected officials to put pressure on port officials as all of them ordered their barrels early this year with expectations of supply chain issues. They now are exasperated that they sit at a port only about an hour’s drive away ― with some that have been there since July 7, he said. “It’s terribly frustrating for them,” Haney said.

The issue has become a massive logistic challenge at Barrel Associates, particularly when barrels arrive at a winery on a day crews are picking fruit, Jaeger said. Some sales personnel for the company also have helped out with deliveries as well.

“It has to be there when the vines are picked and the grapes come in to do barrel fermentation,” she added. ‘It’s really testing some people. We are definitely doing everything possible within our control to expedite these barrels as quickly as possible, particularly those that are bound for chardonnay fermentation.”