Wine Country Girds for Invasion of Destructive Pest

NAPA, Calif. — The wine bug phylloxera, which devastated the world’s vineyards a century ago, is back, and experts say California vintners may have to spend about $500 million during the next decade to thwart the pest.

“It’s costly, but they will just have to bite the bullet,” said Jeffrey Grannett, an entomologist on the University of California’s Phylloxera Task Force. “It’s the type of thing that’s going to be widely felt over many years.”

Vintners in Sonoma and Napa counties, California’s premium winegrowing areas, are getting ready to replant vineyards with vines resistant to phylloxera (pronounced fih-LOX-eh-rah), a burrowing plant louse.

Mike Fisher, a partner in Motto, Kryla & Fisher, a wine industry accounting firm, estimated that more than 13,000 acres of vineyard will be replanted in the Napa Valley alone.

Replanting costs up to $15,000 an acre and means three to five years of lost production while the new vines reach maturity.

There have been 90 sightings of the pest in the valley and 12 in Sonoma County, Fisher wrote recently in the trade publication Wine Industry Update.

The winegrowing regions of France and California were ruined by phylloxera between 1870 and 1900. Vineyard acreage dropped from 20,000 to 3,000 in the fledgling industry in Napa County.