CWI reports promising harvest despite wildfires

By Lisa Riley

Published: 09 November, 2017

The Californian Wine Institute (CWI) has confirmed the 2017 harvest is in good shape despite the headline making wildfires that ravaged the North Coast last month.

The harvest showed "strong quality" across the state, said the industry body, adding the vast majority of the region’s wine grape harvest was unaffected by the wildfires, with only 12% of the state’s total production coming from the affected regions (Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino) - 90% of the harvest was completed by the time the disaster struck in Napa and Sonoma, and 85% in Mendocino.

The “excellent quality” of this year’s harvest had been helped by ample rain across the state putting an end to a five-year drought, said CEO, Robert Koch in the Californian Wine 2017 Harvest Report, which was released today.

“While the wildfires in North Coast wine communities made international headlines, the state’s vineyards and wineries were not significantly affected,” he said.

However, due to a heat wave in late August and early September, many regions were reporting reduced yields likely to result in the state’s overall crop size to be down on the 4 million tons estimated by The California Department of Food and Agriculture in early august.

Last year the state’s total crop reached 4.03 million tons – above the historical average of 3.9 million.

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