Lodi grape growers concerned as farm bureau projects additional vine removal this year

The California Farm Bureau anticipates another 40,000 acres of vines will be pulled, with many being seen around Lodi. It's a sight that's becoming more and more common along country roads in the area. 

Massive plots of farmland are either vines with rotting grapes still attached or mounds of pulled-up vines scattered across the landscape. 

"It was a devastating year," Stokes Vineyards owner Bill Stokes said.

Stokes is a third-generation farmer in Lodi. He works hundreds of acres of grapevines. This year was the first year he didn't pick half of them.

"This vineyard was planted in 1991-92 and 2025 was the first year it was never harvested," Stokes said.

He wasn't the only grape grower who had to make those same sacrifices this past year.

"I look out my backyard and there's 40 acres of piles," Peltier Winery & Vineyards Owner Rodney Schatz shared. "It's been more than 30 years I was harvesting that area. It's hard to look at."

The winegrape industry has been hard hit across the state.

According to the California Farm Bureau, between October 2024 and August 2025, growers removed more than 38,000 acres of vines. That's 7% of the state's acreage.

In February of last year, the Allied Grape Growers Association asked growers to pull 50,000 acres, with at least 12,000 of those in Lodi.

This year, the state farm bureau is projecting more to be pulled, roughly 40,000 acres.

For the city and surrounding farmland, the situation has been even tougher.

The Lodi Winegrape Commission chair says last year, roughly 50% of what was planted wasn't even picked.

"If you're an average consumer or a Lodi local resident and you're driving around, you can see the wilted raisin fruit that was unpicked," Lodi Winegrape Commission Chair Jacylyn Stokes-Iniguez explained. "Normally, you sometimes just see it on the end rows, but you could walk down the row and see it. It was pretty devastating for us growers."

The reason for the removal is oversupply. There's too much wine being produced and not enough demand from consumers.

As a result, many grape growers have turned to other crops.

"The kind of the big joke is, when they plant all of Lodi in almonds, what's the rest of the state going to do? We're fortunate enough to still have water to some degree here, but all these trees are going to put pressure on the water situation as well," Schatz added.

While it may seem bleak, farmers still have hope for this year.

"Supply and demand always level out," Stokes-Iniguez said. "What goes up must come down, and vice versa. It will correct itself."

"We'll get through it. We'll do something else," Schatz shared. "We're not going to quit. We're not quitters, that's for sure."

In the meantime, farmers won't get a good picture of this year until the USDA releases its Grape Crush Report, which comes out in a few weeks.