Softening consumer demand and downward price pressures, combined with increases in equipment costs and reluctance by distributors to take on new accounts, are adding up to huge new headaches for many of Oregon's nearly 400 wineries.
In some areas, particularly the northern Willamette Valley, growers appear to be taking even bigger hits than vintners. For the first time since the recession-plagued 2001 harvest, significant amounts of grapes were left on the vines.
"There simply wasn't an adequate market for everything that was grown," said Kevin Chambers, chief executive of Oregon Vineyard Supply in McMinnville and owner of Resonance Vineyard in Carlton.
In the first week of September, independent growers without long-term contracts were demanding $2,500 per ton for pinot noir grapes, he said. By season's end, only weeks later, that price had collapsed to $900 per ton.
"I can't think of a time in the last 10 years," Chambers said, "where we've seen that precipitous a drop."
Leaving grapes on the vine is a bummer. I wish I, or someone, was in a position to buy the overage and make wine with it.
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