CURRENT CROP NEWS 
 

March 21, 2011 

The 2010 wine grape crop  turned out to be a lot larger than previously estimated.  It was down by only three percent.  Many people thought the crop was about 15% less than 2009 season, including yours truly.  Even with the larger crush than anticipated, demand is still very strong for most varieties.   Wine sales are very strong and prices are higher.

Spring still has not arrived in California.  Still lots of stormy weather with some flooding.  It is making almost every grower happy.  Water is so important to California agriculture. Reservoirs are full and the snowpack is one of the largest in a long time.  I have always believed that a wet spring will produce a good grape crop.

This year I will be in Booth 930 (previously it was listed as booth 829) at The Wineries Unlimited  Convention in Virginia.  I hope most of you will be there.  All the other Conventions or Symposiums in Missouri, Minnesota, and Texas were very well attended.  It sure was nice to see a lot of my customers and perspective customers.  The Marquette Grape developed by the University of Minnesota will prove to be a very successful cold climate hybrid.  I understand it is an easy grape to grow and I know the wines are very good.

There has been a lot of good news about wine and wine drinking.  The most important is that wine sales have increased again this year.  There have been so many articles about the health benefits of wine drinking that I can consider myself a possible very healthy person.   The only bad article that I have seen has a headline of "Lack of Sex Among Grapes Tangles a Family Vine".   It is an article in the New York Times about Sean Myles, a geneticist at Cornell University.  What he found, because most vines are "cloned", is "that all the families of grapes are inter connected and in essence just one large family"  I found the chart below most interesting.

THANKS MIKE