Early harvest: Could lighter yields help reshape demand?
The 2026 winegrape harvest looks like it will be California’s earliest in a generation, with a significant percentage of picking on track to be completed by the end of September. This month’s California Report dives down into the harvest latest by grape variety and area, setting out timing, yield and quality.
The report details the respective responses of the state’s bulk wine and grape markets to the news emanating from the vineyards. If some yields are coming in lighter, are extra grapes getting contracted? The advanced and rapidly-progressing state of the harvest means buyers considering late moves must think fast. As we report this month: “Some potential grape deals have been complicated by optimum Brix levels being exceeded while discussions are still ongoing.”
Could a light harvest increase demand for bulk wine, including older vintages? We update our monthly bulk wine inventory charts and conduct some varietal-specific investigations into inventory by vintage year and location.
A lighter harvest, coming off the back of 2024 and 2025 crops also below the five-year average, could help rebalance supply and demand. The harvest picture will be much clearer in September – perhaps too, in turn, a sense of the direction that the bulk wine and grape markets will take over the coming year. But for market pricing to concertedly rise from unsustainable levels, and for multi-year contracting to return, the fundamental cause of the wine industry’s ongoing contraction – falling case-good sales – needs to end. This month’s report relays the latest US wholesaler depletions data from our friends at SipSource.
Read the full Ciatti California Report for August
Bulk wine suppliers are invited to list their 2025 wines with us and send in samples, and ensure they have their 2024 wines on our inventory list, so we are able to harness buyer interest as it arises.
Grape growers are recommended to inform us of the grapes they may have available next year, in 2026, so we can work to match-up suppliers with buyers.
Please contact Mark (+1 415 630 2548 / mark@ciatti.com ), Michael (+1 415 630 2541 / michael@ciatti.com ) or the Ciatti Customer Account Team ( cargroup@ciatti.com ).