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September 2018 WINES&VINES 17 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS To order your glasses, conTacT aTPgrouP/sTÖzle glassware aT (707) 836-6840 or email sTÖlzle@aTPgrouP.com atpgroup Decorated Stölzle glassware for $2.40. Yes, just $2.40. * Stölzle Weinland Stölzle Universal *The $2.40 price is available only with a 192-piece minimum order for single-placement and single-stock, color screen-print decoration and applies only to the Weinland and Universal range of glasses. Set up and new artwork fees are waived for all new artwork. On sale now through October 5, 2018. (For plain Weinland and Universal glassware, contact us. Additional discounts may apply.) aTP sTolzle sale ad_118-8-2_wandV on par with 2015's record crop, while British Columbia growers picked a new record of 32,700 tons last year. "For the past cou- ple of years, several new vine- yards have been planted. This y e a r ' s e s t i m a t e r e f l e c t s t h e newer acres coming into pro- duction," said Vicky Scharlau, the Washington association's executive director. The harvest will come from ap- proximately 58,208 acres this year, up 4% from 56,073 acres in 2016. The new acreage to date has been in established viticultural areas such as the Yakima Valley AVA, in particular Red Mountain, as well as Walla Walla and the Horse Heaven Hills. However, new areas along the Columbia River are also opening up with five new AVAs planned, the most recent being an application perfected in March for Goose Gap around Bad- ger and Candy Mountains in Ben- ton County. A working group of growers and vintners develops the esti- mate, the association explained, as an early indicator of crop size, by variety, for growers and vint- ners to use as a management tool. "[It] is not intended to be a predic- tion of crush," the winegrowers communications manager Katlyn Straub emphasized. Quality and quantity in Texas After a second warm winter in a row (2017-18 was the "hottest on record") and earlier than nor- mal tornados and hail in late March, Texas enjoyed a grape growing season that was quite nice, with no "untimely" rains or other widespread problems, said Justin Scheiner, assistant profes- sor and extension viticulture specialist in the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University. Messina Hof Cellars, located in Bryan is now about 25% through harvest, according to Paul Bonarrigo, the winery's owner and winemaker. So far 300 tons have been harvested, and he expects to process a total of 1,100 tons. The drought is making ripening happen faster and, he said, "the quality is in- credible. There's a nice balance of Brix and acid." Bonarrigo summarized the Texas harvest as being "excel- lent, exceptional" in quality, and noted that it will probably be the highest tonnage that Texas has ever produced. Ed Hellman, professor of vi- ticulture and Enology at Texas Tech University's campus in Fredericksburg, said the harvest across Texas is earlier this year because of the heat and the drought. However, he is less cer- tain that yields overall will be much more than normal. "That remains to be seen," he said. "Last year there was a bit of overproduction. But there is more new acreage producing this year. Will that new produc- tion balance out the lower yield from smaller berry size?" Hellman said the grapes are "clean as can be," with no dis- ease, and small berries can be a good thing, especially for the quality of red wines. Tempra- nillo is just starting to be har- vested in the High Plains, and he reports that the color on those grapes "is awesome!" According to Wines Vines Ana- lytics, Texas currently has 324 wineries producing 1.9 million cases per year. The state's grape and wine industry has a $13.1 bil- lion economic according to an economic impact report from WineAmerica in 2017. What is much less certain is the exact number of vineyard acres in the state. Hellman said counting wineries has always been easier than vineyard acres, but he added grower Andy Tim- mons, who owns one of the larger vineyards in the High Plains AVA, reported last year that 5,000 acres were harvested in that ap- pellation alone. Based on that, Hellman said he believes Texas now has between 8,000 and 9,000 acres in total. —Stacy Briscoe, Peter Mitham and Linda Jones McKee