The Golden State reports a golden harvest

By Erin Smith

Published: 26 November, 2013

The Wine Institute of California is reporting the 2013 harvest in California to be another high quality and high quantity vintage, with the crop estimated to be as large as the 2012 vintage.

Treasury Wine Estates California

California Harvest

California can thank Mother Nature for the 2013 harvest as the conditions were right to get better quality and larger quantity crops.

Steve Smit, Vice President of Vineyard Operations for Constellation Brands said: "Early on, the season was marked by healthy winter rains, followed by a spring and summer that showed some of the lowest rainfalls we have seen in a long time. We saw very few frost nights in the spring, few significant heat spikes and almost no high wind events." The ideal growing conditions are partially responsible for the larger crop size particularly in the central valley of California. Additionally new plantings that have come online are also helping to attribute to the larger harvest.

"We believe the wine grape crush could be four million tonnes again. While the coastal regions are probably down in crop size, the interior regions are estimated to be as big as or bigger than in 2012. More new acreage has come into production this year, mostly in the interior," said Nat DiBuduo, President of Allied Grape Growers.

Some veterans of the wine business are considering it very lucky to have two back to back vintages that have been of such a high quality as well as such large quantities.

Charlie Hossom, Director of Viticulture at Delicato Family Vineyards said: "In 2013, Monterey growers were blessed with another great vintage. It is a bit unusual to have a vintage of this quality following the standout vintage we had in 2012."

Throughout the state in areas including Napa, Sonoma, Lodi, the Central Coast, Santa Barbara and Paso Robles have all reported better than average quality of the harvest.

With the 2013 harvest over, the growers are already looking to next year and are hoping for heavy rain in the coming winter, without rain there is a threat of drought for the 2014 harvest.

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