New Shoots Follow Vine Shortage - Vineyard & Winery ...

New Shoots
Follow Vine
Shortage
AT A GLANCE
f you’re looking to make a last-minute planting of
wine grape vines in 2013, chances are you’ll hear
the phrase, “We’re sold out” – especially if your
vineyard site is located in the Central Valley.
“Growers that are planting heavily are concentrated
in the San Joaquin Valley, and the San Joaquin Valley
has a very short list of rootstocks that are suitable for
the area,” explained Steve Maniaci, general manager
at Sunridge Nurseries in Bakersfield, Calif.
“Therefore, those rootstocks sell out – primarily
1103 Paulsen, Freedom and others.”
Sunridge has a front-row seat to observe the many
factors driving the shortage. Overall, the nursery
grafted just under 25 million
vines in 2012 – about
27,000 acres. The company
is completely sold out of
+ There is a shortage of grafted wine
grape vines for 2013, particularly for
Central Valley rootstocks.
+ The shortage was caused by a burst of
owners planting or renewing vineyards.
+ Nurseries back off on production when
the market softens, but must anticipate
its upswing well in advance.
+ Suppliers with vines available may ask
you to be flexible with rootstock combinations.
+ Growers can help nurseries by making
deposits and signing contracts for their
plantings.
Supplies still available for 2013,
if you know where to look
wine grape vines for 2013,
and even on some rootstocks
through 2014.
BY CYNTHIA ROSI
Maniaci points to a complex
series of events, which has created
an uptick in demand that doesn’t
match supply:
+ The recession caused growers
to back off on expansion projects
and vine renewal, areas that are
both surging forward now.
+ An increase in bulk wine and
lower-price-point wine sales led
to a shortage of those wines, and
a need for new vines to supply
this increased demand.
+ When business slowed, nurseries
looked to foreign orders to
make up sales, and are still filling
these orders.
+ Many table grape growers have
switched to rootstock (rather
than growing vines on their own
roots) to increase production.
This shrinks overall rootstock
availability.
+ About 200,000 acres of Thompson
grapes came out during the
recession. Many of those acres
are now going back into production
with new plantings in wine
and table grapes, putting pressure
on rootstock availability.
Demand for grape vines is running high, as growers rush to
plant new vineyards. Photo: Sunridge Nurseries
Nat DiBuduo, president and CEO
of Allied Grape Growers, confirmed
a shortage of grafted vines. “As far
as the nurseries that I’ve talked to,
one still has some grafted vines
available for 2013,” he said. “But
most of that kind of vine is probably
sold out for 2013.”
However, there are still vines to
be had from certain nurseries, if
buyers are willing to be flexible in
their choice of rootstocks.
NURSERY INVESTMENTS
At Vintage Nurseries in Wasco,
Calif., sales director Dustin Hooper
said his company speculated on an
increase in demand to good effect.
The company had expanded in the
late 1990s and early 2000s during
the last big wave of planting,
leaving it with a surplus of mother
blocks when things tapered off.
“Our owners have been doing this
since 1989, and this is the third
upswing they’ve seen,” Hooper
said. “We had the mother blocks
ready, and we hadn’t fully used
those to capacity in a number
of years.
“We were already getting calls
back in February and March 2012
that other nurseries were out of
vines. Also, there were articles that
said, ‘No more vines in 2013,’ and
we wondered how they could know
Expanding mother blocks in anticipation of increased demand is paying off for
Vintage Nurseries.
that when people hadn’t even finished
planting their crops yet.”
After talking to some major wineries
and asking for their input, Vintage
Nurseries decided to plant in
the idle mother blocks, in anticipation
of new demand. “It’s definitely
paid off,” Hooper said.
Vintage Nurseries still has a
“good collection” of vines available,
according to Hooper. “It may
not be the exact combination that
the owner would prefer, but a lot of
times there is not one end-all, be-all
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rootstock or combination,” he said.
“Usually it’s more like four or five
combinations that would generally
work. People can get stuck on
a certain rootstock because they’ve
been using that certain rootstock,
and they’ve never heard of the
other options.
“The market being as demanding
as it is, a lot of the premium
stocks are already long gone for
next year and for the following year.
So growers have to look at their
options. Do I wait until 2014 – pos-
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64 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT | Jan - Feb 2013 www.vwmmedia.com www.vwmmedia.com Jan - Feb 2013 | VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT 65

sibly 2015 – or do I take something
and get it in the ground and be in
production by 2014 and 2015?”
Duarte Nursery in Hughson,
Calif., also has vines available,
thanks to good planning. Owner
John Duarte began planting the
nursery’s new-generation rootstock
block three years ago.
“We have 175 to 200 acres coming
into production, starting in 2011
and 2012,” Duarte said. “We anticipated
the demand, and we’re in a
good position to supply the vines.
We are also expanding our greenhouse
facility in Hughson. We’ve
gradually built capacity for another
3 million vines, and this year we
add capacity for another 9 million
vines of production.”
Duarte has built all the new
greenhouses and outside bench
areas in steel over cement, to
ensure pathogen-free conditions.
“Growers are very concerned
about getting clean nursery stock,”
he noted.
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(Left to right) John, Jim and Jeff Duarte of Duarte Nursery built new greenhouses to
accommodate an additional 3 million vines.
With a “good supply” left for
2013 and 2014, Duarte is also offering
3-foot-tall vines in larger pots
for California’s North Coast, which
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faster. “Some of the super-highdensity
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those for their 2,500 to 4,000 vinesper-acre
plantings,” Duarte said.
EAST COAST IMMUNITY
On the East Coast, the market
remains largely immune to the supply
vagaries experienced by California
growers.
“In the East, demand has been
fairly consistent. Over the last several
years, we never really peaked
and we never really troughed,”
said Dennis Rak, owner of Double
A Vineyards nursery in Fredonia,
N.Y. “We’ve been at steady-stage
growth. For most Eastern varieties,
things are going to be available as
they have been in the past.”
It also helps that Eastern wineries
tend to be small operations.
“A winery here might have 5,000
cases, so even if they double their
acreage – say by 20 acres – that’s
not a huge issue,” Rak said. “The
scale here is smaller. We are a
younger industry, so what we really
have got going on is just establishment
and expansion of the existing
industry on a pretty regular, predictable
scale.”
But for Eastern growers looking
for vinifera varieties rather than
hybrids or natives, sourcing vines
may be a bit of a challenge. “For
folks that call up at the last minute
and say, ‘Hey, I need some chardonnay,’
that might not be available
this year,” Rak said.
ORDER EARLY
After weathering a soft market,
nurseries want growers to confirm
orders early with contracts and
deposits.
Vintage Nurseries takes orders
three years in advance. “It’s never
too early to order vines,” Hooper
said. “If you order that far out, you
can get exactly what you want –
there’s no doubt about it.”
Sunridge works to get firm
orders. “Foreign buyers, who might
also be loyal customers, are putting
pressure on us,” Maniaci said, “so
we’re trying to get our domestic
growers to commit by signing a contract
and giving us a deposit so we
know their order for 2014 is real.”
Steve Maniaci, general manager at Sunridge
Nurseries, advises growers not to
put off ordering vines.
It’s important for growers to get
out to the nurseries to see their
facilities, Duarte added. “If growers
are planting vines in the next
couple of years, it’s important for
them to get out and understand the
resources that nurseries have, to
see who can fulfill their needs.”
GLOBAL DEMAND
Although about 85% of Vintage
Nurseries’ business stays in California,
the company ships across
the United States and into Canada,
Mexico, Peru, South Africa and
Australia.
Sunridge also sells to overseas
clients. It always takes care of its
home base first, Maniaci said, but it
also must honor foreign contracts.
Selling abroad during a soft market
at home helps keep nurseries in
business.
“Global demand is steady,” he
said. “There are some countries
that have been prospering in these
times of recession. Brazil and China
are two primary examples of a substantial
increase in buying power on
the average per-capita basis. Their
overall movement toward drinking
wine has caused much more
demand for it.”
As demand increases for Cali-
fornia wines to export to countries
such as China, the need for additional
vineyard plantings will also rise.
Thanks to forward-thinking nurseries
upgrading their facilities to
meet production requirements,
vine shortages will be less likely to
occur the next time there’s a planting
boom.
In the meantime, California
growers’ best strategy is to visit
nurseries to see what’s available,
explore their rootstock options and
order planting materials well in
advance.
Cynthia Rosi worked as a newspaper
journalist in London for 10
years before moving to Columbus,
Ohio, with her vintner husband
Paolo. He runs Via Vecchia Winery,
and she writes articles and novels.
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