Napa County's 2020 Wine Grape Production Only Half of Previous Year's

NAPA (CBS SF/BCN) -- The 2020 crop report found that the value of agricultural production in Napa County was only about half the previous year's total, officials said at Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting.

Agricultural Commissioner Tracy Cleveland said Tuesday that the overall value of wine grape crops, a product that overshadows other agricultural production in Napa County, dropped from $937 million in 2019 to $461 million in 2020. The overall production of the crop also decreased by 60,000 tons compared to the year before.

The reduction can be tied to the LNU Complex and Glass wildfires that burned through much of Northern California's wine country last year as well as the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Cleveland. The LNU Complex fires burned over 375,000 acres in the North Bay last Summer, and the Glass Fire, which started last September, burned another 67,000 acres.

The highest-performing wine varieties in tonnage and overall value were cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, and sauvignon blanc, which, when tallied together, accounted for 74% of production and 80% of wine grape value in the county.