Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:01:00] Fewer people are buying wine these days. And between that, tariffs, and a cooler summer, some growers have started to rip up their vines. Today, reporter and producer Elise Manukian visits a Bay Area grape grower under the harvest moon to see firsthand what the industry is up against.
Elize Manoukian: [00:01:35] I think we’ve all heard about some of the challenges that the wine industry is experiencing right now. So I was curious to see how that would impact people who are actually growing the grapes that go into the wine.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:01:48] Elise Manoukian is a reporter and producer for KQED.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:01:53] Wine is a big part of my family and I’ve heard so much about the harvest. I’ve even participated in harvest in like a small scale in my own life. And so I was kind of curious about what it’s like. So I wanted to go check it out. Tell me about where you went, set the scene for me. I drove up to Healdsburg and got to the Dry Creek Valley around 12.30 a.m. It was under a harvest moon. It just felt like the right time to be there. It was a little spooky.
Max Manoukian: [00:02:28] Gibbous Moon
Elize Manoukian: [00:02:30] Is it waxing or waning?
Max Manoukian: [00:02:32] Must be waning, right, because we have the big harvest.
Elize Manoukian: [00:02:35] But as soon as we pulled up, I could just immediately smell this earthiness of the grape skins. It’s kind of like a grassy, really ripe, sweet smell.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:02:46] Why did you get there, so early?
Elize Manoukian: [00:02:49] It sounds early, but it’s actually late for them, because they start harvesting at 5 p.m. And they go all night long. They finish up at like 8 a.m and 9 a.n. Night harvesting is something that happens across agriculture, especially in parts of California, like the Central Valley, where it’s really, really hot during the day. But it’s become kind of like a special thing that happens in California’s wine country, because there’s these theories that if you harvest at night, the fruit is cooler. It lasts longer, it’s less likely to start fermenting early. Hey, how’s it going? Good, how are you guys? Good. My cousin’s name is Max Manukian. He’s currently a vineyard manager for E.J. Gallo, which is the biggest wine producer in the world. And he took me sort of along with him as he goes and supervises the harvest. What time is it now?
Max Manoukian: [00:03:46] One in the morning.
Elize Manoukian: [00:03:47] How are you feeling?
Max Manoukian: [00:03:49] Exhausted.
Elize Manoukian: [00:03:52] As a vineyard manager, he works to basically make sure that the grapes flourish and make the best possible wine.
Max Manoukian: [00:04:03] These are half ton bins, so, you know, 100, 102 bins. All on this little scale.
Elize Manoukian: [00:04:13] At this time of year, his job is very much driving in between the different sites on this huge ranch, checking in on how different parts of the operation are going, the handpick, the machine harvest, weighing all the grapes and then transporting it to the winery.
Max Manoukian: [00:04:29] Right now, mostly what I’m doing is making sure we’re not gonna go over what we’re contracted or allowed to bring in tonight. So if we send more than we’re allowed to, then we’re just not gonna get paid for it.
Elize Manoukian: [00:04:44] And by who? By Galo? Or by who-
Max Manoukian: [00:04:47] Yeah, by whoever’s buying the grapes from us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:04:54] So Elise, you were just telling me about how your family has a lot of connections to wine. You went there to meet your cousin. Tell me a little bit more about your cousin, how long has he been working in the wine industry and what does he do exactly?
Elize Manoukian: [00:05:08] He’s worked in agriculture as long as I can remember. He and his sisters grew up in Healdsburg, which has a, she’s got a strong farming culture. Coming out of college, he applied for an internship at EJ Gallo and got the job. And he’s been there ever since.
Max Manoukian: [00:05:26] The wine industry is a cool sector of agriculture, because wine is a little bit more of a luxury, and there’s a little more art to it than, say, just growing corn or something. No shade, but.
Elize Manoukian: [00:05:42] He does things like soil management. He prunes the leaves to give the grapes a certain amount of sunlight. That all influences the taste and the character of the wine. And then, of course, it all leads up to this part of the year, which is the harvest, where they collect the grapes for their customers.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:05:59] And their customers are basically other wineries around the area or around California and beyond, I imagine?
Elize Manoukian: [00:06:06] Exactly, yeah, as well as Gala, which operates a ton of wineries itself.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:06:14] How did Max describe to you what this year of harvest has been like compared to other harvest seasons.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:06:21] He said that this season was really hard. You can kind of tell early on in the year based on the weather. Certain years it’s just too hot and they have to contend with fires. This year it was really cold.
Max Manoukian: [00:06:33] It was a tough mildew year, which once the vines are infected with that, it kind of can compromise just the health of them in general.
Elize Manoukian: [00:06:41] When there’s not enough sun, when there’s not enough heat, the grapes don’t ripen. The rains that came in earlier this summer, they completely drenched the vineyard. They drenched grapes and the vines, and they have to wait for that to dry off, and that can create rot.
Max Manoukian: [00:06:56] And then we’ve had those early rains, so stuff is just wet, and then it never really dried out. And we’ve it a couple times, so any time stuff would start drying out, it would just get wet again.
Elize Manoukian: [00:07:05] And the rains also made harvesting a lot more of a challenge too, because you can’t pick while it’s raining. So yeah, he said it was a particularly hard season for him.
Max Manoukian: [00:07:18] It’s a lot of like, everything’s just riding on what Mother Nature’s gonna do that year.
Elize Manoukian: [00:07:24] This past week, we had that storm that resulted from the typhoon coming in from Japan. So harvest got put on pause. They have to wait for the rains to stop, for the grapes to dry out, and then they can start again. But a lot of the fruit, unfortunately, won’t make it to the end of that period.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:07:46] Coming up, what other factors are contributing to the wine industry’s struggles this year. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:08:36] It’s not just the vineyard that Max works at that has been struggling this harvest season, right? Can you tell me about, I mean, what grape growers and wineries across California have been really struggling with in this past year?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:08:51] Definitely. So in the vineyard side, grape suppliers have been really struggling to find buyers. I’ve heard stories of people who are just ripping out their vines because there’s no one to buy their grapes. There’s several different headwinds facing the industry right now. I spoke with Julie Berge, who’s the communications lead for the Wine Institute, which is based Sacramento, and she works with wineries and places that sell wine. And she was talking about some of the downturn that they’re experiencing.
Julie Berge: [00:09:26] Obviously one that you hear a lot about in the news or this changing consumer preferences around alcohol and what consumers reach for.
Elize Manoukian: [00:09:35] I think we’ve all heard about restaurants that say that customers aren’t ordering glasses of wine with dinner, as well as like beverage supply places that are saying people are tending towards canned beverages or their not drinking at all.
Julie Berge: [00:09:48] Older Gen Z, younger Millennials, they’re actually reaching for, you know, spritzers or, you know ready to drink canned cocktails. I believe it’s less about them not choosing wine, but it’s the occasions in which they want to drink it.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:10:11] Tariffs as well, right?
Elize Manoukian: [00:10:13] Yeah, so one thing that Julie said to me was that tariffs on Canada have resulted in Canadian suppliers pulling all U.S. wine from their shelves.
Julie Berge: [00:10:23] We’ve been off of shelves in Canada since early March, and that’s a really big deal because Canada historically has been our number one export market, about 35 percent, which equates to about 1.1 billion in value in Canada.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:10:45] Is there anything that the industry is doing to try and turn any of these trends around? I mean, how do you even turn this around?
Elize Manoukian: [00:10:53] Well, I think things come in cycles. So sometimes you just have to wait and see. But one thing that Julie did say to me was that people in the wine industry, a lot of wineries in particular, are kind of paying attention to what are the broader consumer trends. So one thing, that’s really popular right now is sparkling white wine. And I personally wonder if that’s because of the Aperol spritz craze. People are looking for Prosecco to mix with their other drinks. But yeah, but also consumers really value experiences. They want to go into the winery, they wanna meet the winemakers, they wanna see that their grapes come from sustainable sources.
Julie Berge: [00:11:34] I think consumers these days, they want to, you know, they love that sense of discovery. And I like to say wine doesn’t necessarily need a makeover, we just need a reintroduction.
Elize Manoukian: [00:11:46] Julie did mention that a lot of wineries are sort of leaning into more experiential forms of wine tourism, and that that can be really beneficial for wineries that are looking to get people in the door.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:11:57] I guess maybe Max will have to have a tour of his own at 12 a.m. But how is he feeling right now about this year for the wine industry and what the future, I guess, is looking like?
Elize Manoukian: [00:12:12] I think he’s exhausted. It’s a really tiring time. Even in a good year, you’re up all night for weeks. I do think he is feeling some of the stress and the pressure that the wine industry is going through right now, because obviously that factors into his day-to-day work. But he’s a real optimistic guy, and he really loves what he does. It’s your favorite part of the harvest.
Max Manoukian: [00:12:41] I like that for the ranch and then also kind of for the county, everyone is doing the same thing and going through the same difficulties, so it’s like kind of a common struggle for most people. We’re all in it together. It sucks doing it, but yeah, it’s kind of cool feeling.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: [00:13:06] Elize, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us. I appreciate it.
Elize Manoukian: [00:13:09] Thanks for having me on, Ericka. Appreciate you.
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