While the state’s production of wine grapes remains unbalanced — too many producing acres plus excessive inventory triggered by lower wine sales — the issue is gradually righting itself.

That’s according to viticulture experts at last week’s annual Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento.

The currently situation is mostly due to vintners across California having pulled out 40,000 acres of grapevines during the past three years, said Jeff Bitter, longtime president of Allied Grape Growers.

Bitter said he is hopeful that by 2028, the state’s wine industry will have reached a balance between annual tons of grapes grown (that acreage), excess inventory, and wine shipments.

Bitter and three other California-based panelists addressed the “State of the Industry” seminar on Jan. 27.

Steve Fredricks of Turrentine Brokerage followed Bitter, and Danny Brager of Azur Associates closed the 2½-hour seminar.

Each panelist offered perspectives on how wine might return to prominence with consumers, and urged a common theme: “Push the wine industry’s positive stories!”

Speaking after Fredricks, Dr. Liz Thach, MW, of California’s Wine Market Council said a 5,000-participant consumer survey revealed that just 29% of adults are drinking wine. 

Two years ago, 34% of surveyed consumers drank wine. The 29% figure is the lowest since 1997.

Of those who still drink wine, 16% are “core” consumers, and 13% are “marginal,” Thach noted.

One survey question asked respondents to tick “all that apply” when it comes to consuming lower amounts of wine:

The highest number, 53%, said they are drinking less alcohol in general. 

In addition, 25% answered that they lack overall “wine-drinking” occasions, and 19% noted that “alcohol affects me more than it used to,” Thach said.

Another 19% no longer consider alcohol “part of a healthy lifestyle,” while 16% prefer “other types of alcoholic beverages,” and 14% want to consume alcoholic beverages that are not wine.

Why are consumers turning away from wine? As many as 35% simply don’t like “how wine tastes,” Thach told the seminar attendees.

Those who still like wine favor buying a particular brand “because we’ve tried it before,” 57%, and by price, 56% — revealing that wine’s cost definitely comes into play.

Further, 46% of those who eschew wine want to reduce caloric intake and, specifically, reduce sugar — 39%. 

A nugget I found both intriguing and alarming is that 47% of consumers believe wine is high in sugar. Thach: That’s plain old white sugar.

While 63% of wine consumers (correctly) understand that wines contain only natural sugar, a whopping 53% suspect additional sugar is added to wine. Perhaps most perplexing is that 36% believe that wines contain “sugar substitutes.” 

Back to Bitter, and vineyards: In 2025, California’s “standing acres” total was 477,475, down from 515,615 in 2024, he said, quoting figures from a grower-commissioned report. (Standing refers to vines both actively producing and not.)

The force driving the “market reality” for the grape industry is the “finished wine inventory,” and not the number of acres pulled, prices per ton, or even the tonnage available, he said.

Bitter offered some good news: While wineries likely still need to reduce inventory, consecutive smaller crushes in 2023 and 2024 helped decrease tonnage numbers.

While the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s crop estimates for the industry won’t be released until March 15, Bitter provided attendees with rough “acreage-to-crush” numbers for 2025:

• If standing acreage for 2025 is 477,475, the estimates for non-bearing vines are 31,500, and abandoned, 25,000, leaving producing vines’ acreage at 420,975.
• Those vines still in production would yield an estimated average state yield of 3,283,605 tons.
• With 25 percent, or 820,901 tons, projected to remain unharvested (left on vine). 

That would then equal 2,462,704 tons for the 2025 crush, which Bitter emphasized remains just an estimate until the 2025 USDA report is released.

Brager, whose focus concerns what grapes are planted where, and in what numbers, and what consumers prefer, reminded attendees that the wine industry is still competing with Ready to Drink (RTD) products, specifically four top choices: High Noon, White Claw, BeatBox and Buzz Ball.

He also urged those employed in the hospitality side of the industry to offer non-drinking guests coffee, tea, cider or soda “to keep them on site” and engaged if they are not wine aficionados.