Jasmine Vineyards in Delano, CA, will be up in volume in its production of the proprietary Sweet Sunshine grapes this year and will have its first commercial volume of Sweet Celebration, according to Brian Crettol, a salesman for the company.

Both varieties are from International Fruit Genetics in Bakersfield, CA, of which Jasmine is a licensee.

Brian Crettol, salesman for Delano, CA-based Jasmine Vineyards.“Sweet Sunshine is a mid-season green seedless grape,” Mr. Crettol said. “It is like a jumbo Thompson” with “big, beautiful berries and great eating quality.”

This is Jasmine’s second year in commercial production with the Sweet Sunshine, and the company expects possibly 15,000 boxes of the variety. Last year, the company had a small production of the Sweet Sunshine and sent some of the grapes out to a few customers “to take a look at.” Response was favorable, “so we will have a pretty good production this year,” he said.

Sweet Celebration, he said, is “a mid-to-late-season red seedless variety. We feel really good about that variety.” It is a very large grape, “kind of like a seedless Red Globe.” It has “great color and excellent eating quality.” Jasmine expects to have “maybe 80,000 to 100,000” boxes of the variety, Mr. Crettol said. “For the first year, that’s not bad.”

Both varieties will be packed in the “M and V” label.

The Sweet Sunshine was expected to start the week of July 23, with the Sweet Celebration following around mid-to late August. Those are “ballpark dates,” Mr. Crettol said. “These are new varieties. We don’t have a whole lot of experience with them.”

The grape harvest in the San Joaquin Valley was just getting set to start for Jasmine when The Produce News talked to Mr. Crettol Friday, July 13.

“We are going to start on Monday with Flames,” he said. “We will probably have Summer Royals later in the week” and Princess the following week.

“The crop looks good, he said. “The fruit looks great.”

As the season progresses, Jasmine will continue to offer the same varieties as in the past, in addition to the new ones. Among them will be Crimsons, Red Globes, Autumn Royals and Autumn Kings.

This year, Jasmine will be packing some of its grapes in “the stand-up handle bags,” Mr. Crettol said. “This is our first year doing those. The last couple of years, we had some interest expressed by some of our customers, and this year we went ahead and bought some and will be doing those for anybody that wants them.”

The gusseted stand-up bags will carry the “Jasvine” label, he said.