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California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops

389 points · 987 comments · randycupertino

  1. legitster · · focus · HN ↗
    My parents live in a massive fruit growing region of the country. Just this year, 2 of the major packing firms in the county both declared bankruptcy. It's not just the trade war, but years of shrinking seasonal workers that fell off to a trickle as well.

    The knock on effect is massive. The seasonal workers supported a large permanent workforce - and more importantly tax revenues in the county are collapsing.

    But the really important thing to understand is that once the industry is gone, it's gone for a long time. The other markets competing with the US are already expanding their industries to fill the void. Once those trees are planted, they produce fruit for several decades to come.

    1. kyleee · · focus · HN ↗
      Trees?
      1. King-Aaron · · focus · HN ↗
        If you have to argue about nomenclature then your argument is probably not worthwhile.
      2. mathgeek · · focus · HN ↗
        While technically incorrect, tree is informally used to describe grape vines in some regions. Similar to “tomato plants” which is a more common example.
      3. mandevil · · focus · HN ↗
        Grand-post doesn't specify what kind of fruit the region their parents live in specializes in, and plenty of fruit grows on trees (citrus, stone fruit and apples leap immediately to mind).

        And I know that some Washington apple packing and Florida citrus packing companies have declared bankruptcy in the past year, so those would be my guesses.

      4. anigbrowl · · focus · HN ↗
        Yes, fruit grows on trees. Did you assume the comment was necessarily about grapes?
    2. hedora · · focus · HN ↗
      Wait for climate change to really get started.
    3. TheJoeMan · · focus · HN ↗
      From a layman perspective, American fruit growers refused to change with the times. How long are they still trying to make the “Red Delicious” apple work? Another ex-major packer I know of made the peach fruit cups, which people have been catching on are just filled with corn syrup. But these have been long term purchasing trends, yet the growers seemed blindsided by the packers ceasing operations.
      1. bradfa · · focus · HN ↗
        There has been massive innovation and development in apples in the past 20 years. Every apple farm with a clue is growing trees for the past decade that look nothing like the trees of old. They’re growing varieties that didn’t exist 20 years ago. If you’re still seeing Red Delicious anywhere, it’s on the buyers at your local markets that missed the boat.
        1. boringg · · focus · HN ↗
          I mean it also takes a long to build an orchard and get the apples to fruit. So older orchards are happily still producing old varietals instead of ripping and replacing the trees. Not everything old must be replaced with new - so wasteful.
          1. WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
            I planted an apple tree in my yard 20 years go, just for fun. Last year, it finally decided to push out more than a few apples. This year, it put out so many the branches have bent nearly to the ground.
            1. NegativeLatency · · focus · HN ↗
              Possibly you know this but there are pruning techniques to get a good yield of also good tasting apples
            2. WD-42 · · focus · HN ↗
              Get the fruit off the tree. I had one blow over and die because it was too heavy in strong wind
              1. WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
                Sounds like a good idea.
          2. Dylan16807 · · focus · HN ↗
            Of course you don't replace everything old with new.

            But when the specific varietal always sucked, that's a good reason to replace it.

          3. jppope · · focus · HN ↗
            Espaliers and different pruning techniques can have you up and producing fruit in 3-5 years. Totally popping under 10.
        2. djtango · · focus · HN ↗
          Is that why apples just taste like sugary water nowadays and barely taste of apples?
          1. stickfigure · · focus · HN ↗
            I have no idea what you are talking about. The honeycrisp revolution made me like apples again. Maybe your taste buds have changed?
            1. djtango · · focus · HN ↗
              I don't think I've ever seen a honey crisp. I had to look them up I think they're more common in the US. But the royal galas, pink ladys, jazz and fuji all are just really sweet
              1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

                [deleted]

            2. djtango · · focus · HN ↗
              I found a shop selling Hunnyz which is a mix of honey crisp and it was quite nice much nicer than some of these sugar water variants you get nowadays. Still quite sweet but at least it tasted like an apple. So thank you for the recommendation
        3. Der_Einzige · · focus · HN ↗
          Idiot consumers forcing us to take forever for market innovations to come to market is not even close to new, and the consumers 100% deserve the blame, contempt, and policies designed to frustrate them.

          I have to deal with this crap right now in the world of laundry and adjacent world of cleaning. We've had new Enzymes finally hitting the market en-mass for the first time in decades (DNAse/Lipase) which when combined in full spectrum with all other known enzymes leads to truly superior cleaning results. Literally no one has any excuse anymore for smelly clothes as a result of these innovations, and it's probably going to take another 5 years minimum for anyone outside of the nerds on r/laundry and other enthusiast communities to take advantage of these new innovations. For now, the so called "gold standard" Tide laundry detergent people are buying is straight up incomplete and could be tomorrow reformulated with both enzymes to radically improve its performance and isn't for... reasons???

          Where else have we straight up regressed on technology? Vacuum cleaners were better in the 1980s when a higher percentage of America used central vacuums, an objectively superior technology. Guns were often made to higher metallurgical standards, CRT vector displays (Vectrex) to this day get better effective refresh rates, brightness, and glow effects than existing displays (OLED) and peaked in the 1980s.

          "Worse is better", literally, and all because of idiot consumers voting wrong with their wallet. They deserve contempt.

          Oh, and Americans refusing to embrace bidet toilet seats, or air purification (both important circa covid, fecal plums and poor indoor air quality were a significant infection vector!)

          1. luqtas · · focus · HN ↗
            i don't think one necessarily needs the best of the best... probably cheap is enough for a bunch of people

            i'll start by having my OLED smartphone dying after many years and the one i got used LCD. much worse and it felt like plastic. colors, brightness, even if my screen now refreshes twice as fast as the previous - fast forward 2 years i don't think i ever thought about the difference, nor saw it after 1 or 2 weeks with my phone

            totally valid critique on durable products and better substances for cleaning although

          2. lazide · · focus · HN ↗
            I literally can’t think of the last time I had laundry that didn’t clean up perfectly fine with normal laundry detergent.

            WTF?

            This just sounds like yet another thing that can give me a rash or some kind of weird cancer in 20 years.

            1. astrange · · focus · HN ↗
              Ever tried getting curry or blood stains out of anything?
              1. lazide · · focus · HN ↗
                Blood stains are easy. Wash cold, and they come right out.

                I can’t remember the last time I had curry stains on anything, and I lived in central India for a year. I just used the typical local detergent and did my own laundry. Always cold though.

                1. astrange · · focus · HN ↗
                  You might be lucky. Those both typically don't wash out and can set if you do it wrong.

                  For curry, it does get better if you leave it out in the sun a day and pretreat it, I forget why.

                  1. lazide · · focus · HN ↗
                    I just wash them in cold water the moment they happen (or as close to it as possible), with some soap. Works fine.

                    Setting takes time. Heat makes it worse, as it accelerates the chemical reactions.

                    Most of the heavy duty stuff is when people ignore it, or industrial settings.

              2. reverse_list · · focus · HN ↗
                Ok so I have a soy sauce, or so I think it is, stain that I can't remove on a shirt. Is it still possible to clean it? Nothing I've tried seems to get rid of it.
                1. lazide · · focus · HN ↗
                  That is where the enzyme cleaners might help. It’s a protein stain.

                  They sell little cleaner sticks (look like deodorant sticks or the like). Most dry cleaners will have someone who specializes in stain removal.

            2. AlanYx · · focus · HN ↗
              A lot depends on what clothes you're washing. Modern enzymes are most useful with modern synthetic material blends, especially underwear. If you've ever had that type of thing stay stinky after washing, that's what's missing.

              If you're wearing mostly cotton, normal detergent is largely fine unless it's heavily soiled/stained.

          3. ikr678 · · focus · HN ↗
            I don't know that central vacs were the height of vac technology, but I cannot understand how weak cordless/battery vacuums have such marketshare compared to a vacuum unit that gets 110/240v of power direct from the wall.
            1. asdff · · focus · HN ↗
              No one wants to wrangle a cord or locate a plug evidently. I don't mind it but people have made their choice.
          4. asdff · · focus · HN ↗
            The enzyme stuff is funny to me. DNAse, no purpose there. Why not RNAse too? People can't articulate why they even want a DNA degrading enzyme. Lipase to degrade lipids seems good, but then again, that is already the function of soap.
            1. Der_Einzige · · focus · HN ↗
              Exhibit A on "why it takes 5 years for awesome innovations to come to market" right here!
          5. adwn · · focus · HN ↗
            > CRT vector displays (Vectrex) to this day get better effective refresh rates, brightness, and glow effects than existing displays (OLED) and peaked in the 1980s

            Except that they're absolutely huge and heavy for any halfway decent screen size and resolution. If I were to replace my two 24-inch screens with CRTs, I'd need a second desk for them alone.

      2. jimbob45 · · focus · HN ↗
        I guess I’m out of the loop. What’s with the Red Delicious hate?
        1. chihuahua · · focus · HN ↗
          It's mealy, bitter, and has a thick unpleasant skin. Many articles call it "the worst apple in the world." Decades of engineering it for transportability at the cost of taste and edibility are to blame.

          But the U.S. has created new, much better apples, like Cosmic Crisp (2020)

          1. phoghed · · focus · HN ↗
            Honeycrisp is still the king, and afaik farmers hate growing it.
            1. chihuahua · · focus · HN ↗
              I've read that Honeycrisp is difficult to grow, that's probably why.

              Cosmic Crisp is much easier to grow, at least in the climate it was developed for/in. Those 2 varieties are somewhat similar, although I find Honeycrisp a bit more subtle in flavor and enjoyable, while Cosmic Crisp has just a strong sweet/tart flavor.

            2. FpUser · · focus · HN ↗
              >"Honeycrisp " - it was my love until it was not. over the years the taste and texture have completely changed
              1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

                [deleted]

              2. mandevil · · focus · HN ↗
                My understanding is that demand killed the Honeycrisp. When it first came out, it was very delicate and could only be grown in certain places. But it was a perfect apple- crisp and sweet and bursting with flavor. So everyone who tasted one loved it and wanted more.

                And so the food scientists went to work, and figured out how to cross-breed in the ability to grow in a wider variety of places. And adding in the capability to grow in large numbers like the Red Delicious turned the Honeycrisp into an apple that tasted more like the Red Delicious.

                The US is really amazingly good at growing food, but it is because the physical reality- not just transportation but growing conditions- trumps taste in the main.

                1. Dylan16807 · · focus · HN ↗
                  Are there any rules about labeling that can distinguish the old and new Honeycrisps?

                  Edit: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;how-honeycrisp-apples-went-from-marvel-to-mediocre-8753117" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.seriouseats.com&#x2F;how-honeycrisp-apples-went-from-...

                  Based on this a big problem is overlong storage, which could be avoided with some effort into local purchasing.

                  1. mandevil · · focus · HN ↗
                    My advice, as someone who grew up regularly apple-picking, for going local is to prefer the types that are local versus the names that you recognize from the supermarket. Unless you are in exactly the right area (upper Midwest), you will be much better off with the best apples for your region then with a locally grown Honeycrisp.

                    In upstate New York, I would recommend Autumn Crisp, Blondee, Macoun and Shizuka. I haven&#x27;t picked apples in Virginia in about a decade, so I&#x27;m probably out of date on the right types to get there, but I remember loving Stayman apples.

                2. phoghed · · focus · HN ↗
                  smdh even my apples are getting enshittified
          2. joquarky · · focus · HN ↗
            I&#x27;ve enjoyed listening to dozens of talks by Alan Watts, who is a pretty chill guy until he comes across the subject of red delicious apples. Never heard him curse in any other subject.
        2. cosmic_cheese · · focus · HN ↗
          In my family they’ve always been known as “those apples that look pretty on the shelf at the supermarket but taste like cardboard and aren’t even good for cooking”. We’ll all opt for just about any other cultivar if given the choice.
        3. randycupertino · · focus · HN ↗
          It&#x27;s mealy, tastes pasty and bland with no flavor. Honeycrisp so much better tasting and texture! Red delicious were bred to have a dark red outside and look like a classic &quot;apple&quot; while sacrificing the apple flavor inside.
          1. mohaine · · focus · HN ↗
            The original Red Delicious wasn’t even bred, but was just a chance seedling found by chance.

            <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Red_Delicious" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Red_Delicious

            No idea if this is still true of what is currently sold under the name. All apple verities are clones so the they should be (mostly) the same but the verity is old enough to not have anyone protecting the name.

            1. bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
              Red Delicious is not a pure clone of the original. Random genetic mutations have happens over the years and those were cloned. Normal breeding has more genetic variation but clones get some
            2. lazide · · focus · HN ↗
              Normal Apple trees will have wildly different flavors on even individual branches.

              Specific varietals are from cloning specific branches widely, but at some point it often gets ‘lost’ due to natural imperfect cloning.

          2. throwaway7783 · · focus · HN ↗
            I am somehow in the &quot;I like Red Delicious&quot; camp. Perhaps because I was used to Kashmiri apples, that apparently share the cultivar roots of red delicious.
        4. tczMUFlmoNk · · focus · HN ↗
          <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;applerankings.com&#x2F;red-delicious-apple-review&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;applerankings.com&#x2F;red-delicious-apple-review&#x2F;
          1. phatfish · · focus · HN ↗
            This site is good fun, thanks.
        5. mohaine · · focus · HN ↗
          Well, they kind of suck these days, at least compared to how we remember they used to taste.

          Who know if they are actually the same, plain genetic drift, or they have been selected to be more shelf stable at the cost of taste.

          1. happymellon · · focus · HN ↗
            No. They kept trying to push it over here.

            It was always grim, bitter, but &quot;oh so pretty&quot;.

          2. phyzome · · focus · HN ↗
            I remember Red Delicious being kinda gross in the early 90s. Bitter and cardboardy.

            However, it seems there are multiple things with that name. I&#x27;ve had one that looked different and tasted... less bad.

        6. giardini · · focus · HN ↗
          While the red delicious are a good usually-large American apple that ships easily the newer varieties are much tastier.
        7. raddan · · focus · HN ↗
          My wife and I used to drive around aimlessly when I was in grad school and she was just starting her career as a doctor. We found that it was a good way to relax, and we sometimes discovered fun local gems when we did this.

          One weekend we stumbled on a local apple orchard doing a cider making demonstration. We were the only people there so the orchardist (he called himself a “pomoculturist”) personally showed us around, picking an occasional apple, telling us about it, and then encouraging us to take a bite.

          At one point he picked a deeply dark purple, almost black, apple and handed it to me. “Black Oxford” The flavor was intense: acidic, sweet, floral. Then another, dark red and fragrant. “Winesap” Then “Belle de Boskoop”. And on and on.

          None of these apples are sold commercially except at small scale directly from orchards. The flavors, appearances, and aromas of apples is truly astonishing. So I think that’s why Red Delicious gets all the hate. The world of apples is amazing and huge.

          I prefer to see Red Delicious as yet another miracle of apple genetics, just one that I don’t personally care for. But if you have the opportunity to visit an heirloom orchard, please do.

          For me, it was a life-changing event: I now have a small heirloom orchard of my own.

        8. TheJoeMan · · focus · HN ↗
          The Red Delicious has been optimized for the growers, packers, and grocery stores, and not the consumer. The priorities are thick skin so they can be roughly handled, and bright red because they believed that&#x27;s what would make people purchase them. &quot;Cosmic Crisp&quot; is their answer to the Honeycrisp, by trying to tweak the Red Delicious instead of abandoning it. I see it as the equivalent of &quot;a faster horse&quot; dilemma.
      3. nullisland00 · · focus · HN ↗
        Cosmic Crisp was marketed to growers as a replacement for Red Delicious with a similar shipping toughness and a long shelf life.
      4. lelandbatey · · focus · HN ↗
        Nobody in any major apple growing region (Washington) is growing Red Delicious as their main apple variety for consumers, not even close. They&#x27;re all growing various club apples (e.g. Envy, Cosmic Crisp), and there&#x27;s massive competition to be the next honeycrisp (btw, honeycrisp quality is seasonal due to packaging, out of season they&#x27;re significantly worse because they&#x27;ve been in storage for a long time, Apples are harvested only once a year)

        See this as a list of merely the most popular varieties you can find at stores: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;waapple.org&#x2F;varieties&#x2F;all&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;waapple.org&#x2F;varieties&#x2F;all&#x2F;

    4. pfdietz · · focus · HN ↗
      Was one of them Del Monte? They made a bad bet about consumption patterns from COVID persisting, but canned fruit demand didn&#x27;t stay high, if I understand correctly.
    5. dorfsmay · · focus · HN ↗
      Why has the seasonal workforce shrunk?

      Usually most staffing issues can be solved with higher wages. Could it be a solution here?

      1. pchristensen · · focus · HN ↗
        I’d imagine many of them are immigrants that either fled, were deported, or decided not to return for the picking seasons.
      2. aaronbrethorst · · focus · HN ↗
        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kuow.org&#x2F;governing&#x2F;2026-03-23&#x2F;between-ice-and-a-hard-place-wa-farmworkers-fear-deportation-family-separation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kuow.org&#x2F;governing&#x2F;2026-03-23&#x2F;between-ice-and-a-...
      3. mandevil · · focus · HN ↗
        Oh, I read this as &quot;disease killed the fruit=&gt;the packing companies went bankrupt=&gt;the farmers stopped growing=&gt;no one needed a seasonal workforce=&gt;all of the people who served the seasonal workforce lost their jobs.&quot;

        Something like this for oranges: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motherjones.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;2026&#x2F;04&#x2F;florida-orange-juice-industy-decline-death&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.motherjones.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;2026&#x2F;04&#x2F;florida-oran...

        The thing about the &quot;wages are low because of immigrants&quot; is that it neglects that all of those immigrants are consumers just as much as they producers. They need food, medical care, places to relax, places to live, and so these immigrants employ plenty of native born people, people who would not have jobs if those immigrants weren&#x27;t there consuming. Even if you could get higher wages to draw other native born people in from another part of the country, then you are just stealing the people and all of this sort of consumption from another part of your same country.

        1. linuxftw · · focus · HN ↗
          Not all farm workers are immigrants, legal or otherwise. There are many temporary, seasonal workers that make poverty wages, but it&#x27;s more than they would make in Mexico or wherever else. The farms provide basic necessities and pay the workers as little as possible.
          1. aprilthird2021 · · focus · HN ↗
            But even those temporary seasonal workers are in lower supply now bc the money doesn&#x27;t outweigh potentially getting detained in a migrant detention camp or worse
      4. s1artibartfast · · focus · HN ↗
        Depends on the staffing issue, but many cant be solved by raising wages without going out of business.

        Not every industry has tech level profits.

      5. aprilthird2021 · · focus · HN ↗
        Higher wages means higher prices. At a certain point your price is uncompetitive with imports. You can use tariffs to protect a local product against an imported one, but that would require a competent leader who doesn&#x27;t get emotional and declare a war (bomb-based or trade-based) when his feelings are hurt
      6. AngryData · · focus · HN ↗
        Technically yes, but it still isn&#x27;t a quick fix. Seasonal and temporary workers still need other seasonal work or jobs that let them leave for seasonal work and need the capital investment to be able to travel for work and live at different farms. A single seasonal job paying good won&#x27;t by itself get someone to invest into van-life, its maybe 2 months out of 12 and not entirely predictable work&#x2F;profit just from yield variability. And most modern jobs don&#x27;t let someone leave for weeks at a time to work elsewhere, atleast not any that are near the price range of basic physical labor.

        You also lose a significant amount of productivity from first-timers in any process, and other full-time jobs taking away your expe

    6. landdate · · focus · HN ↗
      Good. Let this nasty industry and its parasites die.
    7. aprilthird2021 · · focus · HN ↗
      I was told if we kill people in the streets and create concentration camps to put everyone suspected of being an immigrant in (even if they have legal papers, bc hey those can be fake who knows when your Prez thinks voting is fake) and send every immigrant back then Americans would be wealthy and prosperous and you&#x27;re saying that&#x27;s not the case in a country that&#x27;s had extremely low unemployment for almost 15 straight years (excepting COVID)?
    8. JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
      &gt; not just the trade war

      I just got back from Italy where I bought several cases and large formats of wine that, even after shipping, cost less than the non-plutocratic greats from California. Wildly, I got charged zero duties. Not even MVN. (I suspect it’s because I’m in a red state.)

      Given how much of American farming went hard MAGA, it’s really difficult to feel compassionate for their struggles. Maybe after bankruptcy the new owners will be better.

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