Same here in California, I could never find any local distributor for Chilean grapes and the shipping from the East Coast is unaffordable
Purchasing Spring Grapes - Denver, CO
- Thread starter DonnyDarko19
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DonnyDarko19
Junior
Unfortunately, no. I haven't found any local suppliers. The only option I have found so far is Musto Wine Grape Company in Connecticut. The problem is, unless you buy a LOT of grapes, they won't ship them fresh since that would require a refrigerated truck. Instead, they will only ship 5 gallon pails of frozen grape must and shipping is outrageous (not their fault, they ship using FedEx or UPS and it's just their shipping rates). Last I checked (a few weeks ago) it was about $200 per pail for shipping.
Wine grapes direct is a good outfit and ships for much less. But yes, there is no way around the high shipping fees on heavy stuff. I want to say that to ship to me, was around $50 per pail.
DonnyDarko19
Junior
Do they sell Chilean grapes? There are a few other options (I've used Brehm Vinyards) for getting north American grapes, but Musto is the only option I have found for Chilean grapes. I've really been wanting to make some Chilean Malbec, but I'm not paying $200+ for shipping.
@DonnyDarko19 thanks for responding. That’s definitely more than I’m willing to pay right now! I’m going to try to join a couple of winemaking clubs in the area and start networking-which could be tough with covid.
DonnyDarko19
Junior
Sure thing!
One club you can look into is the Colorado Wine club. It's a club of winemakers. Covid has made it difficult for the club to meet, but hoping that changes soon.
https://sites.google.com/site/coloradowineclub/
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Maybe they can use mechanical harvesting for the buckets, but the grapes can only be hand harvested to ship? That could be a factor.
-Aaron
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A few local vineyards here do some version of the following for white-wine-making home gamers:
Sell the grapes and you pick up chilled, racked, settled, ready to ferment juice. No added charge for processing. Prices are roughly $1.50/lb, and the conversion is roughly 18lbs of grapes per gal of juice. Beer kegs work great for this and at 15.5 gal you need to buy 280lbs of fruit - $420. For the equivalent of a 6 gal bucket that'd be, what, call it $160 or $27/gal. This is machine-harvested fruit.
How they sell 6 gals of juice for $50 or $8/gal I have no idea.
Sell the grapes and you pick up chilled, racked, settled, ready to ferment juice. No added charge for processing. Prices are roughly $1.50/lb, and the conversion is roughly 18lbs of grapes per gal of juice. Beer kegs work great for this and at 15.5 gal you need to buy 280lbs of fruit - $420. For the equivalent of a 6 gal bucket that'd be, what, call it $160 or $27/gal. This is machine-harvested fruit.
How they sell 6 gals of juice for $50 or $8/gal I have no idea.
If you compare this to the prices for hybrids and native grapes from the Finger Lakes (Wine Juice | 30+ Varieties | Fulkerson Winery & Farms) they are not too crazy ($5.50-8.00/gal). The viniferas are a lot more (≈$18-$20/gal), but the Finger Lakes is a very marginal area for vinifera, and these are high-quality grapes (or at least they were ten years ago).
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