Preliminary California Crush Report: Wine Grape Tonnage Up 20 Percent – 4 Million Tons Crushed:
The California Agricultural Statistics Service today released a preliminary crush report for 2012 indicating that 4.01 million tons of wine grapes were crushed, an increase of 20 percent compared to the 3.34 million tons of wine grapes crushed in 2011.

The report says that red wine varieties accounted 2,289,783 tons, up 19 percent from 2011. The 2012 white wine variety crush totaled 1,724,121 tons, up 21 percent from 2011.

The 2012 crush totaled a record high 4,383,100 tons, up 13 percent from the 2011 crush of 3,874,158 tons, and 1 percent larger than the previous record high 2005 crush. Tons crushed of raisin type varieties totaled 270,085, down 28 percent from 2011, and tons crushed of table type varieties totaled 99,111, down 36 percent from 2011.