The 2011 California wine grape harvest was lighter and most of the grapes have been picking at lower sugar levels, giving winemakers the opportunity to make more elegant and balanced wines.

1. VinoEnology: Global
grapes and bulk wine
shortage could cause
consumers to pay
higher wine prices

2. The 2011 California wine grape harvest
was lighter and most of the grapes have
been picking at lower sugar levels, giving
winemakers the opportunity to make
more elegant and balanced wines.
According to California office of the USDA
National Agricultural Statistics Service
the 2011 grape crush have totaled
3,874,146 tons, 3 percent down from the
2010 crush of 3,986,314 tons. Red wine
varieties crush totaled for 1,920,036
tons, down 6 percent from 2010.

3. The 2011 white wine variety accounted
for 426,905 tons, down 7 percent from
2010. Raisin type varieties totaled
372,551, up 36 percent from 2010, and
tons crushed of table type varieties
totaled 154,653, up 25 percent from
2010.

4. At the same time California’s grape-
growers are finally happy about the fact
that the grape prices are raising. After
three years of slower wine sales and an
oversupply of bottled and bulk wines,
wineries have finally cleared their
inventories of older vintages and now
there are looking to buy more grapes this
year.
That demand is pushing the grape and
bulk wine prices up which make this
market a very hot niche.

5. There are few website like WineBusiness
and VinoEnology.com where vintners
and grape-growers can trade.
So if you’re looking to buy bulk wine you
will be find out that the prices are way up
and that could be hurting factor for a
number of small winery and négociants,
which have using the bulk wine market
to feed their brands.

6. Most of the largest U.S. wine producers
have signed long-term contracts with
grape growers to secure their access to
fruit and this gives them an option to
better manage their wine price strategy.
Overall, the grapes and bulk wine prices
remain strong, and buyers and sellers
should be very active.

7. Similar cases of grape shortages are
reported elsewhere, according to The
Drinks Business website France’s
Languedoc saw grape prices rise to a 10-
year high and Spain’s Rioja saw its 2011
grape yields drop to more than 20
percent, resulting in “a serious depletion
of stocks matched by price rises.”

8. If this grape and bulk wine shortage
continuing in the next few years,
wineries may have to raise their wine
prices, but they need to be very carefully
so they don’t scare the consumers away
and damage their brands.

9. At the same time U.S. economy is start
to recover and more Americans are
increasingly interested in a lifestyle with
food and wine, but most of those
consumers are still looking to get
discount deal of quality wines, which are
offered by many wine flash sites like
Wine.Woot, Lot18, GiltTaste and few
others.

10. The flash sites are product of the
recession and a consolidation of
distributors that has made it hard for
wineries to get their wines into
stores, but at the same time they have
brought new customers into the
space, and make them more comfortable
in buying wine online.
Find grapes for sale here:
http://vinoenology.com/

11. Contact Info: Petar Kirilov
VinoEnology.com
707-490-2067
info@vinoenology.com
Sebastopol, CA, 95472