California wine industry finally sees growth after 3-year slump

Food & Drink Weekly, Feb 16, 2004

California wine industry finally sees growth after 3-year slump: The California wine industry seems to be perking up after a three-year slump, claims Nat DiBuduo, president of Allied Grape Growers, a key California grape marketing cooperative. The industry's earlier increases in production, allied with cheap imports and declining exports created an imbalance.

But since the fall of 2002, he said, that has been corrected through the grubbing up of 10% of the state's vineyard space. With the rise of both the Australian dollar and the Euro, and the drop in the American dollar, California is now competing with imported wines, while increasing export competitiveness. "There's light at the end of the tunnel but we're not out of the tunnel yet," said DiBudeo.