California table grapes 2026: a bigger crop, an early start and a short finish

The 2026 California table grape season has run two to three weeks ahead of normal from bloom to harvest, and it is heading for a third straight year of growth. USDA's August forecast put the crop at 1.15 million tons, up from 1.05 million in 2025¹. But an early, fast harvest means an early finish: growers expect the San Joaquin Valley to wrap up in mid-November rather than late November, with the most fruit in cold storage since 2018 and open questions about Thanksgiving⁷. Here is what the numbers say and how we are planning the red and green grape programs through January.

The crop: a third year of recovery

The National Agricultural Statistics Service forecast on August 12, 2026 that California's table-type grape crop would reach 1.15 million tons, against 1.05 million tons in 2025¹. Wine grapes were forecast at 2.5 million tons, down 120,000 from last year, and raisin-type grapes at 1.0 million, unchanged, so the state's total grape crop is expected to come in about 20,000 tons below 2025 even as the table crop grows¹.

FreshFruitPortal's reading of the NASS series puts the 2026 forecast about 13% above the 2022 to 2024 average of 1.02 million tons and about 12% below the 2018 peak of 1.3 million tons⁶. The hole in the middle was 2023, when the remnants of Hurricane Hilary pushed output below a million tons for the first time since 2009; 2024 and 2025 recovered, and 2026 continues the climb⁶. Last year 84% of the crop went to the fresh market, which would mean roughly 964,000 tons of fresh grapes this season if the share holds⁶. Table grapes are about a quarter of California's total grape tonnage, and the state's overall grape output has fallen 40% from its 2013 peak, mostly on the wine and raisin side⁶.

USDA's Economic Research Service, writing before the 2025 harvest, had expected 980,000 tons for 2025, which would have been a third straight year under a million; the final NASS figure of 1.05 million came in higher^{1, 3}. On the demand side, ERS notes that U.S. fresh grape imports exceeded 2 billion pounds in 2024/25, surpassed domestic production for the second year running, and lifted per-capita availability to 9.56 pounds, the highest on record³. Peru supplies the winter, Chile the spring and Mexico the early summer³.

Acreage: steady at the top, thin underneath

The NASS and CDFA acreage report released April 22, 2026 counted 115,000 bearing acres of table grapes in 2025, unchanged from 2024, and just 3,000 non-bearing acres². Flame Seedless remains the leading variety at 10,547 acres, followed by Autumn King (6,338), Scarlet Royal (6,056), Red Globe (5,255), Crimson Seedless (4,694), Autumn Crisp (4,154) and Ivory (3,379); Sweet Globe is far smaller at 1,712². The variety detail covers about 83,000 of the state's table acres, because reporting is voluntary and acres pulled during 2025 are excluded².

Those names are our catalog. Flame opens the red program out of Coachella in May; Scarlet Royal and Crimson carry the fall; Autumn King is the last green of the year and runs into January. With only 3,000 non-bearing acres statewide, supply growth over the next few years will come from yield and weather, not from new vineyards².

The earliest season in decades

Southern California's 2025-26 winter was the warmest on record at an average 49.5 F, and the rest of the state was among its warmest for the time of year⁵. Vineyards bloomed up to four weeks early. Pete Hronis of Hronis, Inc. said his vines were 14 to 16 days ahead, the earliest bloom he had seen in more than 40 years, and growers told John Pandol of Pandol Brothers their schedules were running 15 to 23 days early⁵. Picking in the San Joaquin Valley normally starts in the first or second week of July; in April, projections had it starting in late June⁵. Pandol called it the kind of spring the valley sees perhaps once a decade and warned that the compressed schedule meant the same work in a shorter window, with quality or yield at risk in large single-variety blocks short of labor or equipment⁵.

Hronis said the early bloom itself had no agronomic effect on quality or yield⁵. The expected payoff was late summer: with competing summer fruit finishing earlier, grapes would have more of the shelf to themselves around back-to-school and Labor Day⁵. The California Table Grape Commission launched a 2026 campaign covering the U.S. and 23 export markets, and its president, Ian LeMay, said early promotions help retailers keep grapes in the basket through fall⁵.

Where the season stands in late October

Fourteen weeks in, the San Joaquin Valley harvest was still two to three weeks ahead of schedule, and growers now expect a roughly 20-week season instead of the usual 21 to 22, ending in mid-November⁷. USDA's September 30 storage report showed 15 million boxes of California grapes in cold storage, four to five million more than at the same point in each of the previous two years and, by Pandol's reckoning, the highest inventory on any date since 2018⁷. Weekly shipments in August and September ran as much as 10% below the prior year on USDA's shipper survey after a strong first six weeks, and supermarket volumes tracked by Circana were lower than the same week a year earlier in most weeks⁷.

Pandol's explanation is arithmetic: if harvest runs faster and shipping runs at a normal pace, storage has to rise⁷. The quality of fruit that came through the summer heat is good, and a dry fall let growers pick on their own schedule rather than ahead of rain⁷. Autumncrisp on the green side and Scarlet Royal and the other late reds are performing well⁷. Buxman of Sunny Cal Farms expects pricing pressure as supply tightens into November and said carrying California fruit through Thanksgiving would be a challenge, not an impossibility⁷. Chilean and Peruvian imports are approaching, and recent cuts to Peru's blueberry estimates have made retailers nervous that Peruvian grape volumes could disappoint as well⁷.

What 2025 taught

Last season is the cautionary tale. Growers declared 98 to 100 million boxes going in, and the final count landed closer to 95 million⁴. Rain in September, October and November hit vineyards before and even after plastic covers went on; labor shortages in some areas left fruit hanging longer than planned, which hurt quality and shelf life; and lingering damage from Hurricane Hilary and the 2024 heat waves was still showing in the vines⁴. The season then ended abruptly in December when cold-storage supplies ran out⁵. Export returns were mixed: less volume at lower prices to Canada, more volume at lower prices to Mexico, steady results in Japan and Taiwan, and gains in both volume and price in Central and South America⁴.

What it means for Los Angeles buyers

Plan the holidays now. The valley will be mostly picked by mid-November, so the California fruit on the market from Thanksgiving through January is coming out of cold storage, and the 15-million-box inventory is both the opportunity and the risk: plenty of volume today, with condition that depends on how long the fruit has been in the room⁷. Ask for pack dates. Our red carton runs 18 to 19 pounds, bagged or clamshell, and we can tell you which lots are fresh-picked late reds such as Allison and Holiday and which are storage Crimson and Scarlet Royal.

Expect price firmness, not a collapse. High storage usually points to soft pricing, but the shippers quoted above expect the opposite as fewer houses have fruit in November, and the import transition could be bumpier than usual if Peru's volumes fall short⁷. On the green side, Autumn King is the variety built to close the year and we carry it into January; Autumn Crisp and Pristine run through December.

Finally, watch the import switch. Imports now exceed domestic production, and have for two years running³. The California season is shorter this year on both ends, and the gap between the last storage Crimson and the first good Peruvian arrivals is where quality and price get tested. Call the office for this week's varieties, sizes and pack dates.