They don’t have to choose, it depends on what species they are working with. If they want to make a wine they have to plant a wine specific specie, if they want grapes for direct consumption it’s a whole other specie.
Vinyards are quite an investment, it takes often more than 5 years to produce anything, so you better be sure that you are working with the right plants!
Also usually the vines are clones (for consistent wine taste) and so you can lose a whole vinyard if that specific individual genus is susceptible to a passing disease (since the clones all have the same genus, they are ALL IN DANGER!!!)
Source: my uncle was a vinyard owner and farmer in the south of france, we talked about all of this while drinking his coop’s fabulous wine)
Generally true, but there are also grapes that are good for both table consumption and wine.
The difference between wine grapes and regular grapes is the variety. If you’ve ever heard names like Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, those are not only the type of wine, but also the variety of grape. Those grapes are also typically not very edible. For edible grapes I imagine it works similar to other food production. The farmer sells it to a distributor who in turn sells it to wholesalers who then sell it to stores, factories, etc. Or sometimes the farmer might have a direct contract with a large grocery chain.
I’m pretty sure vineyards grow their own grapes. They starve the grapes making them sweeter and smaller for best fermentation.
They don’t starve them, older vines produce less fruit but sweeter. Stressed do produce a good product but farmers can’t control rain.
Farmers seem to be underrepresented on the fediverse.
Outside of cracking the DRM to their tractors, they may not have a compelling reason to be here.
