Grapes for Sale: How Wine Over-supply is forcing many Grape-growers to Rethink Their Planting Strategy

Did you looking to sell or source your grapes for this Harvest? - The clock is ticking away!

When you've been in the wine industry for a while, you come to expect the regular appearance of a wine glut, or in industry over-supply.

So which grapes will be easy to sell this year and which will be over supply? This year can be a Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot in over-supply, next maybe will be something else. In those days with a millions-tone global wine industry, the pain remains the same, but now is more winemakers and grape-growers to share it and try to find a easy way for their grape sales. In fact, in a strange way, the grapes over-supply maybe is a good thing for the wine industry.

Some wineries and vineyards will be taking the opportunity to do some replanting of unwanted vines or grafting over to some new grapes variety. Not only this can take vines out of production and bring the grapes sale down for a few years, but it should bring some equilibrium back to the wine industry.

But what grapes variety will be the next big thing into the wine world and will be easy to sell? That's the most important question for most winemaker and grape-growers, but nobody knows the answer for sure.


Maybe for the white grapes variety these can be the French Viognier, which have a nice floral and apricot flavors and aromas with gentle texture or the Portugal Verdelho, which can produce a fresh and vibrant wines, with well balanced palate of fruit and a smooth buttery finish. This variety can be a great alternative to the market-dominant grapes - Chardonnay. So we can see this harvest that grapes sale activity goes up for these varieties.

For the red grapes variety this can be the Spanish Tempranillo, still not very well known in the global wine world or maybe the Italian Sangiovese. The biggest loser looks like being the Merlot and at the same time the Pinot Noir is still coming strong on the market and driving the grapes sale up.

The other question what is very important for the grape vine market, is why some of the big wine companies are re-grafting or planting grapes that are already well in over-supply. Are they crazy? NO.

Many of the larger scale wine companies gave little consideration to choice of grapes clone and rootstock and see if they perform better, which later will be producing a high quality wines. Every fine wine is coming from quality grapes!

All this information about the grapes for sale and oversupply is sign that the wine industry is changing, as well as growing. So the biggest beneficiary from this current situation will be the consumers, which can enjoy a better wines, wider choice and cheaper prices,just don't rush.