California reports separately Raisin, Table, Red Wine, and White Wine grapes from 17 crush districts. Each district varies widely in the variety and price per ton. District 4 (Napa) receives the highest average price of $3,415 per ton. District 3 (Sonoma and Marin counties) receive the second highest price per ton $2,187.
The rest of the states don't have the breakdown by grape useage. After CA, Washington produced the next highest number of tons of grapes (156 thousand tons vs CA's 4 million tons).
A few interesting Varietal statistics stand out.
A few interesting Price statistics stand out.
Footnote+1: Some recognized teinturier varieties http://ngr.ucdavis.edu
1) Petit Bouschet (synonyms: ramon Teinturier, Bouschet de Bernard, Bouschet Petit, Petit Bouse, Pti Bushe, Tintinha),
2) Alicante Bouschet (synonyms: ramon Teinturier, Bouschet de Bernard, Bouschet Petit, Petit Bouse, Pti Bushe, Tintinha),
3) Rubired (CA hybrid of Alicante Ganzin and Tinta Cao (an AXR (Aramon crossed Rupestris (Aramon was a french root stock, rupestris is an American root stock, the two were crossed in France after the phylloxera epidemic)), synonyms: Calif 58, California S 8, Ruby-Red)
The rest of the states don't have the breakdown by grape useage. After CA, Washington produced the next highest number of tons of grapes (156 thousand tons vs CA's 4 million tons).
A few interesting Varietal statistics stand out.
- CA crushes more Rubired than Pinot Noir or Syrah. Second only to Merlot and more than all of Washington's wine grapes put together. Grown mainly in Central Valley, Rubired is one of a handful of teinturier varieties (footnote +1). Where is all that Rubired juice going? I've not seen it on red wine labels, except once at Wellington in Sonoma ("Noir de Noirs"). Supposedly it's mostly going to make juice concentrate (juice was 748K tons or 20% of 2008 crush). http://www.winebusiness.com/wbm/?go=getArticle&dataId=3565 Although googling around, I did find a link for natural grape color offered by SJVC/E&J Gallo. Curious. http://expoweb.ift.org/IFTExpo/ec/forms/attendee/index.aspx?content=vbooth&id=775
- Chardonnay is king, more was crushed in the US last year than any other varietal.
- Cabernet Sauvignon dropped by 25% year over year from 2007 to 2008, perhaps due to the expense involved in aging it?
- Sangiovese (mainly used for chianti-style wines) is a rare varietal in CA. You won't find it until you scroll about 1/3 of the way down the page. It's there between Carnelian & Princess (red seedless table grape). It's even below Virginia's total crush amount.
- Sagrantino is even rarer in CA (only 67 tons crushed last year).
A few interesting Price statistics stand out.
- Aleatico is the most highly priced wine, mostly grown in Sonoma. It's used for making red dessert wine since it has a Muscat flavor. Another possible explanation for its high price is its fame as the grape of Napoleon, Aleatico dell 'Elba, that grew on the island of Elba.
- Meunier (commonly known as Pinot Meunier) is the 2nd most highly priced wine. This varietal is used to make champagne and is almost exclusively grown in Carneros.
- Oregon has 2 of the top 10 most highly priced grapes: Oregon Pinot Noir and Oregon Syrah.
- Virginia's Petit Verdot is in the top 10 most highly priced grapes.
The next data to collect is bottle prices. Given the per ton price of grapes, does that support the theory that bottle price is x10 the cost of the grapes going into the bottle? That would mean Oregon wines should be on average 3x the price of the average CA bottle. Probably hard to collect, but let's see what the data says at a State by State level...
Footnote+1: Some recognized teinturier varieties http://ngr.ucdavis.edu
1) Petit Bouschet (synonyms: ramon Teinturier, Bouschet de Bernard, Bouschet Petit, Petit Bouse, Pti Bushe, Tintinha),
2) Alicante Bouschet (synonyms: ramon Teinturier, Bouschet de Bernard, Bouschet Petit, Petit Bouse, Pti Bushe, Tintinha),
3) Rubired (CA hybrid of Alicante Ganzin and Tinta Cao (an AXR (Aramon crossed Rupestris (Aramon was a french root stock, rupestris is an American root stock, the two were crossed in France after the phylloxera epidemic)), synonyms: Calif 58, California S 8, Ruby-Red)