Nearly 59,263 tons of white grapes and 186,323 tons of red grapes were crushed in California's District 8 (San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties) in 2023, a somewhat larger than anticipated crop for the region given some grapes were left on the vine and challenging weather earlier in the year wasn’t conducive to a large crop. The total for all winegrape varieties crushed in District 8 amounted to 245,586 tons, as reported in the California Department of Food and Agriculture preliminary 2023 California Grape Crush Report released Feb. 9. 

The figures mark a hearty increase in tonnage for the area from 2022; 44,502.8 tons of white grapes and 150,702.8 tons of red grapes were crushed in the District that same year. For 2023, “the total value of the Central Coast wine grape crop increased by 27%, for a total $855,295,831. This increase in value can be attributed to the significant jump in yields over 2022, as well as the amount of grapes that were under multi-year contracts or sold during the active period of the market in the first half of 2023,” Audra Cooper, director of grape brokerage and partner at Turrentine Brokerage stated in a press release.  

In District 7—the northernmost area of the Central Coast that includes Monterey and San Benito counties—123,537 tons of white grapes and 128,279 tons of red grapes were crushed. For white grapes, this was a 28,109-ton increase and a 17,036-ton increase in red grapes from 2022.

“In 2023, the total tons crushed in the Central Coast increased by 23%, reaching an impressive 523,755 tons.… If all the tonnage had been picked, the total for the Central Coast would have been significantly higher, potentially making 2023 the harvest in the history of the Central Coast,” Cooper said in a press release. 

In an interview with WineBusiness Monthly, Cooper said, “certainly the crop overall was much larger than anticipated… Earlier in the year we had weather conditions that typically are not conducive to a larger crop, specifically a very erratic, very long bloom period that created shatter throughout District 7 and 8, but what we did end up having was really great cool weather that was really conducive to berry sizing, which really pushed the upper limits of the crop level.” 

She said there were late season Bordeaux reds harvested after multiple frost events that typically would not be able to hold up or meet Brix parameters and still looked excellent when it was picked, though some vineyards did have fruit rejected due to frost damage. Because demand was so soft at the second half of the growing season, there was a lot of fruit that was left on the vine, unsold. 

She said it’s actually surprising how much Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon made it in. According to the preliminary report, 95,085 tons of Cabernet were crushed in District 8 and 31,818 tons were crushed in District 7.

“I was expecting it to be the second largest, not the largest Cabernet crush in the history of the district, so that was certainly a surprise and a key takeaway with how much this region can produce in regards to Cabernet,” Cooper said. 

Todd Azevedo, a broker at Ciatti Global Wine & Grape Brokers, said with the long, cool growing season, there were some issues with ripening in certain areas but he wasn’t surprised about the tonnage amounts. “If you look at Cabernet in District 8, going back after five years, it’s pretty much where it was. It is the largest one out of the last five years,” he said.

Anthony Bozzano, principal at Bozzano & Co., said he was a little surprised about the tonnage numbers mainly because there were so many grapes that were left on the vine. He recalled a time in late November when he was driving through Monterey Country. On that drive, he would see a few blocks get harvested and others that weren’t.

He added that his early predictions of crop size were wrong. He said during the unusually cool summer he didn’t think we’d make it to harvest because we wouldn’t hit the right Brix. He said somehow we got lucky and Mother Nature was good to us and the grapes ripened, though because of the late harvest and some early rains, there were some mildew issues in Monterey.

Bozzano was also a little surprised by the amount of Cab from Districts 7 and 8. He said the Cab harvest was so late, and “it's such a big slice of the pie on the Central Coast, I thought that number would have contracted.” He said the quality of the 2023 Cab from a winemaker point of view is outstanding. 

From a statewide perspective, Glenn Proctor, partner/owner at Ciatti, said as the season progressed–and Todd’s right about this–the numbers aren’t that far off. 

“We didn’t pick some fruit and some fruit got rejected… We believe this on a statewide basis, even though the crop is 3.68, that there’s still a lot of fruit statewide that wasn’t picked. I think this crop was potentially over 4, 4.1 if it all would’ve been picked statewide, so there is a lot of fruit that didn’t get picked,” Proctor said.

Proctor added that there really weren’t any sizable amount of low-price transactions because the buyers just didn’t need the fruit and he believes that’s why the price was a little better statewide. He said in a market like this they would’ve projected that the price would have been down a little bit. 

“We didn’t see that because there were not a lot of cheap transactions. Most wineries had just cut back the contracts they already had, they weren’t looking to buy extra fruit and necessarily take advantage of the lower price of the spot market because they just didn’t have a need,” Proctor said.

Some Increases, but Pricing Remains Flat on the Central Coast  

The figures for pricing either remained somewhat steady or saw slight increases.

“As California moved through harvest in 2023, the crop reports from the Central Coast were coming in over crop estimates… What’s more interesting, or surprising, is that pricing increased even with the yields trending upward,” Azevedo said in a press release released by Ciatti.

For white grapes in District 8, the weighted average grower returns per ton (also known as the average price per ton) was $1,674, a a slight increase from $1,670 in 2022. For red grapes in that District, the average price per ton was $1,919, a slight decrease from the 2022 price of $1,933.

$1,869 is the average price per ton for all total winegrapes in the area, a number that’s slightly down from the $1,879 price point seen in 2022 for total wine. 

In District 7, the average price per ton for white grapes was $1,237–essentially the same price as last year. The average price per ton for red grapes in 2023 is $1,615, a $83 increase from last year’s $1,532. In 2022, the average price per ton for all total winegrapes was $1,393 and in 2023, that number climbed to $1,424.

Cooper said there could be a misconception in regard to district average prices. With very few exceptions in the Central Coast districts, the pricing went up; granted, maybe not as much as in recent years, but it still increased, whereas the spot market price dramatically decreased in a lot of cases. 

“What happened there, in my opinion, is you have multi-year contracts that were negotiated in prior, maybe more seller-type markets, and you also have contracts in some cases that are tied to the district average percent change in the previous two years and so that naturally typically has an increase over time,” Cooper said. “Additionally, we also had unsold fruit and fruit that was custom-crushed that didn’t have a price associated with the market and, because it was a soft market at the end of the year, there weren't a lot of volumes sold so you didn’t see that massive impact on the district averages.”

She said she expected the pricing to not decrease. However, she did note that she expected District 8 Cabernet to decrease slightly on the district average, yet there was essentially no net change. Cooper said that was a little surprising particularly because of the size of the crop and the amount of fruit that sold in the second half of the market. 

Bozzano said a lot of the pricing we saw was due to the fact that there were grapes on multi-year contracts, and spot market grapes sold early and he noted that if larger wineries had the capacity and the casegoods needs, we would've seen the spot market grape price come down, but by the time some of the grapes were able to be picked, many wineries had already shut their doors and or they didn’t need it. 

Cooper explained that it usually takes about two years for the crush report to catch up with the current marketplace, so we may see the prices actually decline for the 2024 crush report, though she pointed out that anything is possible; it takes only a lightning strike in this industry to turn things around very quickly. 

She said the reality is there are many factors that are pulling this market down into oversupply with lack of casegood sales growth, and in some cases restriction and retraction, that it’s not likely that we will see an improved grape market in the Central Coast for 2024. 

“It’s really a year of survival. Kind of the new quote right now is ‘survive to ‘25,’” she said  

She said you have to be realistic, there’s a lot of doom and gloom out there and that does not set the scene for a positive grape marketplace with robust activity. She said the good news; however, is that the wines made from 2023 are going to be exceptional. 

“That’s the bright spot of the weird, strange, long, extended harvest we had… this one legitimately could easily be 'vintage of the decade' vibe,” she said.

In terms of varieties, she believes all varieties on the Central Coast are going to be challenged to some degree or another and there’s certainly a divide between red and white varieties. White varieties, with the exception of Chardonnay, seem to have a stronger pace in the case goods market than reds do currently. 

“I anticipate that while there will still be varying degrees of oversupply in the short term, there will be at least some demand for Sauvignon Blanc and Rhone whites. Those exceptions would probably be Riesling and Pinot Gris,” she said. 

For 2023, Bozzano expected there would be more Sauvignon Blanc coming in with the number of plantings he’s seen. According to the Crush Report, District 8 crushed 14,155 tons of Sauvignon Blanc and District 7 crushed 11,004 tons. Bozzano said there’s enough Sauvignon Blanc now in the ground that he expects to see that tonnage number blossom over the years.

When it comes to reds, Cooper said Paso Cab still stands out amongst the rest, but even it will struggle moving forward in the short term in regards to being oversupplied and a lack of demand from wineries at a sustainable price.   

For Bozzano, he’s optimistic and pleased with the amount of interest he’s still seeing in 2022 Paso Cabernet as well as interest in all 2023 wines from the region. “There is fantastic quality bulk wine available from his vintage and I hope that winemakers who purchase from the bulk wine market look at this as a real opportunity,” Bozzano said.