Sundale Vineyards has increases in its three major fall grape varieties
Sundale Vineyards has increases in its three major fall grape varieties
The California fresh grape season “has been good” so far, said Sean Stockton, president of Sundale Sales, the marketing arm of Sundale Vineyards in Tulare, CA, in an interview with The Produce News Aug. 4. “Season-to-date movement has been good. Prices have been excellent. We have had a good start to a little bit earlier season.”
But the bulk of the season lay ahead. “We are going to come into some of our peak varieties here, from mid-August all the way into October,” Stockton said.
By Aug. 15, “we will be packing Scarlet Royals, with Autumn Kings to follow right behind them,” he said. In the black seedless category, “we will be packing Autumn Royals.”
Domestic and export demand have both been excellent, Stockton said.” It has been a very solid start to the season” with regard to quality, movement and price.
For the fall season, Sundale will have volume increases in its three main late-season varieties, Stockton said. In addition, “we have some new Red Globe plantings for both domestic and import markets.”
The company was currently packing Summer Royals. “We will be finishing them the middle of August. Then we will start packing Autumn Royals” for domestic consumption, he said. Actually, the company expected to pack some Autumn Royals as early as later in the week of Aug. 4, but those would be “all for export at this point.”
The Summer Royals have had excellent eating quality this year, and that should serve as an incentive for retailers “to try tri-color type packaging in clamshells,” Stockton said, “because as consumers buy all three colors, they are getting a chance to try a black seedless that they wouldn’t normally buy.” That gives consumers an opportunity to discover “some of the positive attributes” of a variety they haven’t been trying and allows them to return to the store to look for more of that variety.
Sundale’s house pack facility “is in full motion, packing a variety of different pack styles” such as bicolor and tricolor packs in two-, three- and four-pound clamshells as well as fixed weight pouch bags, he said.
“We will continue to have availability, all the way through the middle of December, of excellent quality and flavorful grapes,” Stockton said.
