Record Wine Grape Harvest

Record Wine Grape Harvest

Record Wine Grape Harvest. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

It was a good year for wine grape growers in the state. And for the first time White Riesling was the top variety in the state unseating Cabernet Sauvignon. David Knopf with the National Ag Statistics Service, Washington Division 

KNOPF: The grape crop was the highest on record, 160-thousand tons that were grown this year, that’s up 3% from 2009. We’ve got production increases on the red side especially. That was up by 9000 tons from 2009. On the white side we were down almost 5000 tons there.

Acreage numbers were up last year.

KNOPF: We had an increase in acreage on the reds and the yields were good, maybe not necessarily records although we don’t measure that but they must have been good and combined with the acreage increase that resulted in our record production level.

The number of wineries in Washington State is now over 700 and growing which might also be driving the grape industry.

KNOPF: The average price for all grapes set a record high this year at $1040 a ton, it was up from 2009 when the one industry softened a little bit when we were in the throes of the recession but it looks like now that we’ve come out of that, prices are a little bit stronger.

Overall Chardonnay ranked 3rd with Merlot ranking 4th.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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