Grapes from the San Joaquin Valley will see a later start this season by an estimated week to 10 days. “It’s mostly due to the cool weather we’ve had all spring and even now,” says Jim Beagle of Grapery. He notes that while some growers in the region may start the week of July 10th, due to its varietal mix and flavor profiles it targets, Grapery will begin about 10 days after that.
Right now, Coachella, California and Mexico are in harvest and they too are later. “So I don’t see any reason to think that it won’t be a smooth transition--just at a later date than normal,” says Beagle.
Meanwhile, the fruit quality looks to be strong. “The vines haven’t faced much in the way of stress from big swings in temperatures. Combine that with the fantastic water situation with all the rain we’ve had and the snowpack in California, the plants are just really healthy. The fruit is sizing incredibly well so quality at this stage is as good as I’ve ever seen industry-wide,” says Beagle.
Strong movement and pricing
That looks to be meeting what Beagle says is strong demand. Retailers are reporting that both pricing and movement have been healthy at retail, meaning consumers are paying good money for grapes even with the state of the economy and the inflationary pressures in the marketplace.
“The flip side of that is that the pipeline of product is shaping up to be an incredibly high-quality year and what we see in a year with big fruit that tastes and looks good and has a good shelf life is that that drives a lot of demand. They keep coming back to buy more and aren’t afraid to pay a reasonably good price for it,” says Beagle.
For more information:
Jim Beagle
Grapery
Tel: +1-661-387-9300
jbeagle@grapery.biz
www.grapery.biz