If this year is defined by a singular emotion, it’s anxiety. That’s nothing new in farming, however I’m talking about anxiety over the abysmal grape market rather than any natural phenomenon. Many of us were so busy scrambling for buyers, we may have forgotten to notice just how great the weather has been. Why wouldn’t we get handed a great year when most of us can’t sell any grapes? Let’s look at some numbers My gut feeling was that 2025 was similar to 2023 with a few big differences. 2023 saw some record high rainfall in the winter and early spring throughout California. Even the Paso Robles area got around 21” of rain from July 1st 2022 to July 1st 2023, up from a whopping 6.5” the year prior. That amounted to lots of nice canopy development early in the year and some good yield potential, provided you didn’t get shatter during the chilly springtime. This year however, the Central Coast was back to a measly <7” of rain w