5000 wine producers in the United States

There are just under 5000 wine producers ("bonded wineries") in the United States. Half of these are in California, all according to a report by MKF Research LLC. These are the most "vinous" states, measured in the number of wineries (2005):

- California: 2275 bonded wineries
- Washington: 454,
- Oregon: 291
- New York: 245
- Texas: 141

One can understand that it is easier for a wine enthusiast to keep track of this compared to e.g. the 10,000 chateaux that you can count just Bordeaux. Virtually all states have at least a few bonded wineries.

The total acreage planted with vines reach 608,000 acres / 246,000 hectares. The details:

- California: 474.000 ac / 192,000 ha
- Washington: 54.000 ac / 22.000 ha
- Michigan: 41.200 ac / 17.000 ha
- New York: 31.000 ac / 12.500 ha
- Philadelphia: 12.000 / 4.900 ha
- Oregon: 11.700 / 4.700 ha

But only half of the grapes are actually used to make wine, which explains the discrepancy between the lists. The rest ends up as e.g. raisins and grape juice. So in total there is some 120,000 ha of wine producing land, which incidentally is about the same size as Bordeaux. The average acreage for a winery is thus around 50 hectares. I winder what that number is for Italy or France…

More from BKWine:
- Watch our wine videos (beta)
- Come on a wine tour
- Wine news on your site
- Subscribe to updates to this blog
- Subscribe to our monthly newsletter
- Put a pin on our map

© Copyright BKWine (text & photo)