5 questions about California’s wine grape crisis

1. What is happening in California’s wine country?

California wine growers are struggling to sell their grapes as demand for wine has plunged, forcing many to leave grapes unharvested on the vine or tear out vineyards entirely. Roughly a quarter of the state’s vineyard acreage has been taken out of production, and this year about half of California’s wine grape crop entered harvest season without buyer contracts, compared with 70%-80% having contracts in a typical year.

2. Why is wine demand declining?

Several factors are driving the drop, including baby boomers aging out of the wine market and younger people drinking less due to health and financial concerns. Wine also faces growing competition from craft beer, liquor, canned cocktails, seltzers and cannabis, while tariffs have reduced exports, particularly to Canada, previously the largest foreign buyer of American wine.

3. Who is affected by this downturn?

Growers such as Bill Berryhill, a third-generation farmer at Berryhill Family Vineyards near Lodi, can’t find buyers for grapes on 200 of his 500 acres and plans to remove 50 acres after harvest. The impact extends beyond growers to farmworkers and local economies, according to Kyle Collins, an operations manager with Allied Grape Growers, an organization representing about 500 California farmers.

4. How significant is the decline in numbers?

U.S. wine case sales fell 23%, from 427 million in 2020 to 329 million in 2025, while total wine spending dropped 22%, from $94 billion to $74 billion, according to First Citizens Bank’s State of the Wine Industry Report. Global wine consumption also declined 2.7% from 2024 to 2025 and 14% since 2018, with especially sharp drops in Europe and China.

5. What comes next for growers and the industry?

Some growers are replacing vineyards with crops in higher demand, such as almonds, walnuts, pistachios and olives, while others, like Berryhill, plan to keep farming grapes despite ongoing losses. Industry experts say recovery depends on balancing supply with reduced demand and identifying what today’s consumers actually want. Those experts said they hope the market will bottom out soon.

For more on this report, read “California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops,” a story from The Associated Press published on The Washington Times.