California Growers Remove Healthy Vines to Cut Wine Supply

California wine grape growers are pulling out healthy vines and, according to published reports, burning some of the removed plants as the industry cuts supply in response to weak sales and a long decline in wine drinking.

The retrenchment is happening across a state that produces about 80% of U.S. wine. Industry estimates cited by growers and economists show that more than 38,000 acres of wine grapes were removed statewide in 2025, equal to about 7% of California’s vineyard acreage. Another 40,000 acres are expected to come out this year, according to Ag Alert, a California Farm Bureau publication. If that forecast holds, three-year removals will top 100,000 acres.

At the same time, large volumes of grapes have gone unpicked because wineries already have too much wine in storage. Industry estimates show about 400,000 tons of grapes were left on the vines in 2024. That figure then more than doubled in 2025, to roughly 820,000 tons. Over two years, that means about 1.2 million tons were not harvested.

The problem is not disease. It is a mismatch between supply and demand that experts say has been building for years and has now become harder to ignore. Mike Veseth, an economist who studies global wine markets and writes The Wine Economist, said the current adjustment reflects a “historic drop” in wine consumption and a broader reset in the business.

Veseth said the decline is not limited to California. Vineyard removals and other supply cuts are also being seen in France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Chile and Argentina. He said the global slowdown in wine consumption has been developing for about 20 years, even if the pattern has varied by country and from year to year.

California’s troubles have also been sharpened by the loss of the Canadian market. Before the trade dispute between Canada and the United States led to provincial restrictions on American alcohol in early 2025, Canada was the largest foreign export market for California wine. Veseth said the loss of that business does not by itself explain the disappearance of 100,000 acres of California wine grapes, but it has made an already weak market worse.

Robin Goldstein, deputy director of the Robert Mondavi Institute Center for Wine Economics at the University of California, Davis, said the Canadian restrictions are having “a big effect” because the U.S. wine industry has long shipped large volumes north of the border. California was the biggest supplier, but producers in the Pacific Northwest and on the East Coast also relied on Canadian sales.

Consumer behavior in Canada has shifted for reasons that go beyond price and availability, according to Antonia Mantonakis, a professor of marketing and consumer psychology at Brock University in Ontario and a fellow at the university’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute. She said the trade dispute strengthened Canadian identity in the alcohol market and also turned the United States into what marketers call a “dissociative identity,” meaning some consumers actively avoid products associated with it.

That does not simply mean Canadian buyers are choosing more bottles from Niagara or Prince Edward County, she said. It also means they are less likely to choose California wine.

For growers, the economics have become stark. Removing a vineyard is expensive, and many farmers cannot justify it unless they have a plan to put the land into another crop or another use. Goldstein said that in difficult years it is often more common to leave a vineyard in place and simply not harvest the fruit. Picking grapes only makes sense if there is a buyer willing to pay enough to cover the cost of labor and transport.

That is why some grapes have been left to shrivel on the vine, while others have been dropped to the ground rather than picked. Veseth said some wineries are not buying fruit because tanks are still full from earlier harvests. In Washington state, he said, growers have faced a similar squeeze, with many vineyards removed since before the pandemic and others left unharvested in recent years.

The downturn is a reversal from earlier periods when wine grapes looked like the stronger bet. Mantonakis said that when she moved to Ontario’s wine region about 20 years ago, farmers were pulling out peach and plum orchards to plant more vines because grapes offered better returns. Now, in California and elsewhere, some growers are making the opposite calculation.

Even so, economists in the industry do not describe the current moment as the collapse of wine itself. Goldstein said California vineyards face unusually high operating costs, which makes the pressure more severe there, but he does not expect consumption to fall in a straight line until the market disappears. Wine, he noted, has been part of human life for thousands of years, and demand in North America has historically moved in cycles.

The more immediate issue for wineries is how to stand out in a crowded market and how to reach drinkers whose habits are changing. Goldstein said some smaller wineries have held up better by building direct relationships with customers through wine clubs, tasting rooms and tourism. That model, he said, has spread to other wine regions but took shape first in California, where hospitality became a key part of many brands’ business plans.

Mantonakis said the industry still tends to market wine in ways that no longer match consumer expectations. She argues that producers understand viticulture and winemaking very well, but have invested less in understanding how people shop, what younger adults want, and why some consumers are turning to other drinks or drinking less overall.

Her view is that the industry needs more research on the demand side rather than assuming every sales decline means vines should come out of the ground. For younger consumers, including Gen Z, she said, the central question may not be whether they reject wine entirely, but whether the business has failed to ask the right questions about how they want wine to be presented, priced and experienced.