Mention Mexico and one thinks of tequila and tortillas, though hardly of grapes. And yet, Mexico is the fifth largest table grape exporter in the world and the industry one of the country’s big revenue earners. It is no surprise, given the success of its vineyards, that the Mexican wine industry is also enjoying something of a boom, with local vintages winning international plaudits.
Grape production is concentrated in the northern part of the country, mainly in the states of Sonora and Baja California. Last year, almost 32,000 hectares were dedicated to the industry and national production totalled 651,000 tonnes, with the growers of Sonora contributing 456,000t, 70 per cent of the total. Overall, Mexico now accounts for six per cent of world table grape exports, with almost all of that grown in Sonora.
The US is the main market outlet, taking 76 per cent of Mexican grape exports last year, a trade that was worth over $300m to the economy. In just over a decade, the value of Mexico’s US exports has increased by a remarkable 268 per cent, though it still lags far behind its big South American rival, Chile, which supplies over 50 per cent of US grape imports.
Chile ships most of its grapes to the US during the autumn and winter months, but Mexico has cleverly organised production to create its own market niche, enabling it to offer supplies from May to July, when neither the growers in Chile nor in California are in a position to compete.
Mexican growers average about 1,750 vines per hectare. They offer four varieties of grape:
• Perlette, a white, seedless, first season grape, with a crunchy texture and mild, sweet flavour.
• Flame, the most popular variety, is red, seedless, grows in large clusters and has a strongly sweet flavour.
• Sugraone is relatively new to the market and better known by its branded name, Superior Seedless. It is large, with light green berries and has a flavour described as “refreshingly sweet”.
• Red Globe, or Uva Globo, is a large red variety, mild and sweet, with large seeds.
The Mexican season is organised so that the Perlette and Flame varieties are available from May to June, with Sugraone and Red Globe on offer until July. Peak production is between May and June.
Despite its concentration on the US market, Mexico is keen to expand its grapes sales in Europe. Already almost four per cent of production is exported to the UK, with lesser quantities going to Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, and Sonora industry spokesmen say they would like to see a substantial increase in this trade.
The UK would appear to offer a particularly welcoming market. Its consumption of table grapes has risen by an impressive 38 per cent since the early 1990s, making it one of the largest table grape importers in the EU. In addition, unlike consumers elsewhere in Europe, the UK favours the white, seedless variety that is one of the Sonora growers’ specialities.
The relatively short production season, combined with the air freight problems in delivering supplies, may militate against the industry’s ambitions for a much larger share of the UK market. However, one UK company, Griffin & Brand - the UK’s largest importer of Mexican grapes - has demonstrated how such problems can be overcome.
It chartered a series of flights by the largest cargo plane in the world, a Russian Antonov, which is said to be able to carry anything, from tanks to helicopters. On the Griffin & Brand flights, however, it was freshly picked grapes from Sonora that filled the cargo capacity of 140,000 kilos, much to the delight of the local industry.
While table grapes have been grown in Sonora for local consumption since the 1950s, it was not until the late 1980s that the industry became a major contributor to the national economy. State and national governments have supported the expansion, recognising that the traditional exports of grain, cattle and cotton could no longer compete in the global economy.
In Sonora, the industry is concentrated around 60 large growers, whose vineyards range from 120-800 hectares. Many of the growers are from the same families that formed the backbone of traditional agriculture, but this is a different generation, far removed from the popular peasant image, with skills in the latest viticulture techniques and in business management and marketing.
Irrigation is a major factor for the growers and so too is finance, with the cost of establishing a vineyard put at around $15,000 per hectare. In many cases, credit is provided, not by the banks but by the distributors. As well as selling the grapes on a commission basis - usually 15 per cent of the market price - they advance the money needed to cover growers’ production costs, recouping the investment, plus interest, from the profits of the next year’s harvest. If there is no profit, then the debt stays on the books until the following season.
The relationship between distributors and growers can be complex. In general, distributors want to do business with those who have a track record of good management and of delivering quality product on time. For their part, growers want distributors who can negotiate the best price for their grapes and pay it on time. That can mean switching to a different distributor each year or even, as sometimes happens, playing one off against another.
With a harvest season of just six weeks, there is a huge demand for pickers and packers. In Sonora, smaller growers depend on local labour while the larger ones prefer to hire contractors who bring in workers from central and southern Mexico.
The influx inevitably creates social problems and strains local services, but the priority is to get the grapes to market as quickly as possible.
As the US is the main market, it is US quality standards that apply. Unusually, Sonoran grapes bound for American retail outlets are inspected at the border, rather than in the vineyard, as happens with those produced in California, for instance.
For Mexican growers, this arrangement carries a risk. To have a consignment of grapes rejected at the border, having already paid for harvesting, packing and transport, would amount to a financial disaster. To avoid that, the growers routinely pack grapes of a higher quality than is required, which results in their produce being graded “extra fancy”, as opposed to “fancy”, the more standard trade tag.
For both growers and distributors, including major players like Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita, a worrying factor has been the consolidation of the retailing sector, particularly in the US. Where a distributor would have had contracts with 20 different chains over a decade ago, today those chains may have consolidated into four or five, enabling supermarket groups to exercise significant power in the trade.
Some groups now demand year-round contracts at a fixed price, which is bad news for growers, as it takes no account of market conditions that may be determined by over-supply or by crop losses through weather, disease or pests. Similarly, supermarket demands for grapes to be packaged in a specific way, or for additional food safety measures, have major cost implications for the industry.
Around 80 per cent of Mexican grape production is exported. The remaining 20 per cent is being put to excellent use, with a country already famous for its tequila now earning accolades for its wine. In recent years, as local wineries have been collecting medals on the international stage for the quality of their Chardonnays and Cabernet Sauvignons, even the connoisseurs have begun to take notice.
The Mexicans rank 66th in the world in terms of wine consumption, downing just 0.04 of a gallon per capita per year, compared with the 17 gallons a head that the French put away. Even so, as export earnings grow and wineries boom, it must be difficult for any Mexican to avoid raising a glass to toast the grape.
