California Lost 47,229 Vineyard Acres Over the Past Year

California’s vineyard footprint shrank sharply over the past year, with 47,229 acres, or 19,115 hectares, removed between August 1, 2025 and August 1, 2026, according to the California Winegrape Mapping Project 2026 released by the California Association of Winegrape Growers and partner grape and wine organizations.

The project found that 439,115 acres of vineyards remained in the state as of August 1, down from the 477,475 acres mapped a year earlier. That amounts to a net decline of about 8.0% in the state’s mapped vineyard area. The acreage identified as removed was larger than that net drop because the 2026 mapping also incorporated newly detected vineyard land, boundary refinements and classification updates.

The report comes as California’s wine industry faces weaker demand, changes in consumer drinking habits, inflation pressure and stronger competition from other beverage categories, according to the growers’ association. Those forces have been reshaping the state’s vineyard economy for several years and have led to large-scale vine removals in multiple growing regions.

The mapping was carried out by Land IQ, a Sacramento-based agricultural and environmental science company, using remote sensing, artificial intelligence and field verification. The results were processed at the county level, by crush district and by American Viticultural Area, giving growers, wineries and local officials a detailed picture of where acreage has been lost and where vineyards remain in place.

The vineyard total in the study includes producing vineyards, non-bearing vineyards, minimally farmed land, temporarily inactive sites and abandoned vineyards as long as vines are still physically present in the ground. The project does not separate those categories in its acreage totals, and it does not determine whether each vineyard is commercially active.

That point is important in reading the figures. The report’s authors said that vineyard areas identified for the first time in the 2026 edition should not be treated only as new plantings from the prior year. Some reflect improved detection, revised parcel boundaries or updated classifications rather than new development. The project also introduced an interactive map that allows users to compare the 2025 and 2026 vineyard layers and examine changes parcel by parcel.

The 2026 report is the second annual edition of the statewide mapping effort, which began in 2025. By comparing successive vintages of the data, the industry is trying to build a clearer measure of the pace and geography of vineyard contraction during a difficult market period.

Natalie Collins, president of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, said the project was created to give the industry more accurate information at a time when growers need it most. She said the figures measure changes that farmers are experiencing directly and that the numbers represent hard decisions affecting families, workers and local businesses. Collins also said that while vineyard acreage is adjusting to a more difficult market, growers want to remain in a position to plant and farm when demand for California wine improves.