
A good news, bad news report for wine grapes. The North Bay Business Journal reports that the value of the North Coast wine grape crop went up nearly 12-percent last year. They credit a continued surge in Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon grape pricing, plus renewed demand for higher-quality sauvignon blanc fruit, for a large part of the price bump. For Sonoma County, though, overall tonnage was down nearly 10-percent from 2021. Our yield was 187-thousand tons of grapes in 2022. Grower revenue for Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties in 2022 reached $1.39 billion with crops averaging nearly $3,300 a ton.