Afternoon Brief, October 17th

As Restaurant Staffing Evolves, Wineries Reassess Their On-Premise Priorities: The union between wineries and restaurants might have been a marriage of convenience in the beginning, but for decades it functioned roughly the way that both parties wanted...

April brought some welcome rainfall to California’s Coastal growing areas: Up to five inches fell in some locations but, in most, rainfall was sufficient enough to get things looking nice and green but not enough to meaningfully replenish water reserves. Indeed, we are hearing that water usage curtailments in some Coastal areas will start in May, and allocations for the federal Central Valley water management project could be at 0%.  Given the ongoing drought conditions, tentative early expectations are for a 2022 crop shorter than average, though we have been seeing – and receiving reports of – healthy-looking vineyards with good cluster counts and sizes. The picture will be a lot clearer in June once veraison is underway. The Central Coast and Central Valley are slightly behind last year in terms of degree day accumulation, a reflection of the forecasted cooler-than-normal spring.  The early morning hours of April 12th brought a frost episode that had a pa