Michigan Wine and Grape Outlook
Michigan has a wine for every palate and there’s no shortage of wine now or in the future. However, Michigan wine grape growers expect a lighter harvest this year as last winter’s cold snap hurt southwest Michigan, and a deluge of wet weather has hindered the Traverse City region. Wine grapes, as well as juice grapes, are struggling some, says Jeff Ginter, vice president of lending for GreenStone Farm Credit Services. He’s based in Berrien County, Michigan’s furthest southwestern county, bordering Indiana.
In his area, it was an arctic blast on Jan. 15 that produced lingering effects for this year’s crop. Up until that date, the area had been experiencing a mild winter. “Then all of a sudden, we get a 40-degree swing, essentially in one day, and it gets down to negative nine degrees,” Ginter says. “Grapes don’t like that, much like the peach industry, which is also suffering in this area.”
Nikki Rothwell, a Michigan State University Extension Educator who leads the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center in Traverse City, says the wetness and poor pollination weather will create a short crop. “Pollination is bad; I rarely hear this on the grape side of things—often in cherries – but never before in grapes,” she says. “I heard from one grower that has ¼ of a crop of Riesling this year. Disease pressure is also super high. There’s a lot of downy mildew, some powdery, and I think rot is going to be an issue in the clusters.”
Cold Damage
Berrien County vines sustained injury and growers are having to do some maintenance on the vines. “The hybrid varieties are starting to have their secondaries producing,” Ginter says. “So, time will tell, but the dramatic cold shift hit the more tender vinifera grapes the hardest.”
Most were not killed, but grape yields will be down to a historic level not since the late freeze in 2012 that took out much of the state’s fruit.
While going north generally means colder temperatures, Ginter says it wasn’t the case with this winter event that seemed to draw a line at the Berrien and Van Buren County line. “If you go north to South Haven or Fennville they have a decent grape crop,” he says. “They did not get this cold mass.”
The wine grapes that do yield, growers are expecting decent quality, he says. With inventories from previous years, don’t expect Michigan to be short of wine, he adds.
While Van Buren escaped the freeze, the toll it’s taking on higher-producing Berrien County will likely pull statewide yields down. “Many growers are scratching their heads a little bit, surprised the state hasn't declared the county a disaster area with grape yields, as well as peaches, way down,” he says. “It’s an odd year and growers are really keeping their heads down and waiting to see what the secondary shoot produces.”
For the booming agritourism industry in that area, which draws from Chicago, consumers on Wine Trail who want to visit Michigan wineries, won't notice a big difference, he says. “Whether there's a bunch of grapes in the vineyards or they're just green leaves, they will still think it’s pretty – most are not there to walk the vineyards.”
Financially, Berrien County growers are nervous and will be figuring out ways to cut fat. “Whether it's your maintenance program, equipment purchases, building updates, fieldwork or just general improvements, those are being shelved – put on hold at this time,” Ginter says. “High interest rates and inflation are also contributing to the stress.”
The juice grape industry in that county, which supplies Niagara and Concord grapes to Welch’s plant in Lawton, (Van Buren County), is expecting a reduced crop. Welches is still determining how many days they need to be open to accept grapes, Ginter says.
