In honor of California Wine Month, I'll be providing a variety of details about the scope of the state's wine industry. Last week, I published California Wine by the Numbers. Today, We'll look at growth in vineyard acreage. Tomorrow, I'll highlight those wine grape varieties seeing the biggest growth.
California’s wine industry is growing not just in sales volume, but also acres under vine. In the past five years, California added 76,651 acres of wine grape vineyards, an increase of 17.5% from 2006. The expansion is broad-based. High-volume growing areas added vines, but so did the highest-quality regions. No county experienced a decrease. The biggest increases in acreage came in counties that already had substantial plantings.
The 12 California Counties which Added the Most Vineyard Acreage, 2007 - 2011
|
County |
Acres Added |
Total Acreage in 2011 |
|
San Joaquin |
10,783 |
71,403 |
|
Fresno |
9,651 |
41,808 |
|
Monterey |
9,595 |
45,110 |
|
Sonoma |
8,777 |
57,056 |
|
Napa |
7,332 |
45,801 |
|
San Luis Obispo |
5,193 |
30,720 |
|
Madera |
3,418 |
35,334 |
|
Sacramento |
3,192 |
19,486 |
|
Kern |
2,934 |
21,093 |
|
Yolo |
2,905 |
12,632 |
|
Santa Barbara |
2,537 |
17,178 |
|
Mendocino |
2,092 |
17,173 |
[Only one other county, Merced, added more than 1,000 acres.]
Fast Fact: San Luis Obispo County has nearly 31,000 acres of vineyards. That's almost as much as New York State (approximately 32,000 acres).
As you might expect, counties with the largest percentage growth in vineyard acreage over the past five years are relatively low in plantings overall. Marin County, which is emerging as a very good cool-climate growing region, boosted its vineyard land by nearly 66% but is still well under 200 acres overall. Other small, yet high-quality, growing areas with significant growth are El Dorado and Santa Cruz counties. Surprisingly, Fresno and Monterey counties, among California’s biggest growers of wine grapes, managed to increase their plantings by roughly 25%.
The 14 California Counties which Increased Vineyard Acreage by more than 20%, 2007 - 2011
|
County |
Percent Increase |
Total Acreage in 2011 |
|
Marin |
65.6 |
167 |
|
Colusa |
39.1 |
1,577 |
|
Riverside |
33.4 |
1,039 |
|
Shasta |
33.3 |
98 |
|
San Benito |
31.3 |
2,616 |
|
Glenn |
29.3 |
1,046 |
|
Calaveras |
28.2 |
675 |
|
Contra Costa |
27.8 |
1,878 |
|
Yolo |
25.5 |
12,632 |
|
Fresno |
25.3 |
41,808 |
|
Monterey |
24 |
45,110 |
|
El Dorado |
22.4 |
1,847 |
|
Santa Cruz |
22 |
445 |
|
Solano |
21.4 |
3,560 |
The 6 Counties with Zero Growth in Vineyard Acreage
|
County |
Acres Under Vine |
|
Kings |
1,541 |
|
Mariposa |
57 |
|
Orange |
1 |
|
Sutter |
99 |
|
Tuolumne |
30 |
|
Ventura |
52 |
Source: The raw data was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service
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This article is original to NorCalWine.com. Copyright 2012 NorCal Wine. All rights reserved.