California on Track to Remove Another 40,000 Acres of Vineyards

California farmers may be on track to take out another 40,000 acres of vineyards this year to address a structural oversupply of grapes, based on activity since the most recent harvest, Allied Grape Growers’ (AGG) Jeff Bitter told Farm Press.

Bitter, the AGG’s President, urged farms in the Golden State to remove 50,000 acres of vineyards each year in 2024 and 2025. Growers responded by taking out about 37,000 acres in 2024 and another 40,000 acres after the 2024 harvest, but about 20,000 acres of new vineyards came online in each of the last two years.

Producers may begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel with the 2025 season’s relatively small crush, as most industry leaders expect it to fall under 2.5 million tons. How close the industry will come to achieving balance in 2026 has been a matter of recent debate, with one expert at the Unified Wine and Grape Symposium suggesting that California wineries will face a shortage of grapes this summer.

Bitter doesn’t necessarily agree, explaining that the industry appears on track to remove at least another 40,000 acres based on trends he’s seen since harvest. He didn’t make a recommendation for pullouts this year but suggested 40,000 acres “would bring us very close to longer-term balance, based on today’s wine shipment rates.”

“If we don’t see huge price rebounds … there might be enough demand to consume all the supply,” he said recently. “It might be the first time in four years we’ve seen that happen.”

Bitter suspects this year’s crush will be limited by what wineries will purchase or by light production because of abandonments and removals, the latter of which he has estimated was in the “tens of thousands” of acres last year. In 2025, an estimated 30% of wine grapes statewide went unsold, according to the Sonoma County Winegrowers.

California had an estimated 590,000 bearing and non-bearing acres of wine grapes in 2024, according to the Wine Institute. The removal of 117,000 vineyard acres over three years would bring that number down to 473,000.

A shift in focus

Bitter’s latest estimate came as thousands of wine industry professionals gathered for the recent Unified Wine and Grape Symposium in Sacramento. The conference was highlighted by a “State of the Industry” panel discussion featuring Bitter, The Wine Economist’s Mike Veseth, Azur Associates’ Danny Brager, Turrentine Brokerage’s Steve Fredricks and the Wine Market Council’s Liz Thach.

The 2026 symposium marked what organizers said was a broader shift in the American wine and grape industry, as conversations moved from acknowledging market disruption to planning for stabilization and future opportunity.

“This year’s symposium reflected a grounded and forward-looking mindset,” said Natalie Collins, President of California Association of Winegrape Growers and co-host of the conference. “There was a clear willingness to confront difficult realities, but also a shared focus on problem-solving, collaboration and positioning the industry for what comes next.”

The symposium followed a Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) analysis suggesting the market is close to bottoming out and that modest growth may return in the next couple of years. Industry sales in 2025 fell by 2% in terms of volume and 1.6% by dollars, but that’s an improvement over declines experienced in 2024, according to SVB’s 25^th annual State of the U.S. Wine Industry Report issued in mid-January.

As the older, wine-focused cohort is aging out and not being replaced at the same level by Millennial and Gen-Z consumers, the top performers will be ones that prioritize the customer and use digital tools to extend that edge, the report observed.

EDITOR’S TAKE:

Reduced demand for wine is having a dramatic impact on wine grape production as noted in this article. We often associate wine, especially in California, with a high-end luxury life for the vineyard owner(s). This article provides us with a more in-depth look at the current realities of wine grape production and sales. Younger generations are shunning alcohol, especially in wine and beer. Will the wine industry be able to “right-size” by simply removing acreage? What will they do with that expensive land if they don’t use it for grape production? A lot of questions, but right now the only real answer seems to be – remove acres!

It is not our opinion that wine producers will be in dire straits anytime soon. They will still need trucks to run those vineyards. Plus, California is not the only wine producing state. Others like Washington, Oregon, Michigan and New York also will need those trucks to keep them running smoothly. Be sure to put your inventory on AgTruckTrader.com® if you have vineyards near you!