02/08/07 `06 Acreage & Winery Surveys

'06 Acreage & Winery Survey. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The opening session of the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers Annual Meeting was punctuated by the presentation of the results of the 2006 Acreage Survey and Winery Survey. Christina Messer, Director of USDA-NASS, Washington field office presented the results. MESSER: For grape acres we're looking at a total of 31,000 acres, you'll see an upward trend in the chart; almost three-fold increase in acreage since 1993 when our surveys were done. In January 1, 1993 we had 11,100 acres; July 1 of '99 it went to 24,000; January 1, 2002, 28,000 and then January 1, 2006, 31,000. And you'll see that the red varieties have increased faster than the white varieties. In terms of the Winery survey, Messer says the total crush reported covered 98%. MESSER: So over 400 wineries were contacted. We had 232 wineries that reported crushed grapes. We had total tons crush of 120,500. The official estimate is 120,000 tons but that's the 500 ton difference is because of the grapes grown out of state. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.