Table grape season by country

Roughly December to March, opening in November. Peru’s grape window sits just ahead of Chile’s and overlaps with it, which is why a European buyer sees both origins on offer in January.

Red Globe remains the volume variety for Asian markets; the seedless varieties are what European retail buys. The distinction matters for planning because they do not ship on the same schedule.

Roughly December to April, the longest single programme Chile runs. It overlaps Peru’s window at the start and carries well past the end of the cherry season.

Grapes ship at the same moment cherries are pulling equipment and vessel space out of the market, so the December weeks are the ones where a grape booking is most likely to roll. Book earlier in peak than the window on its own would suggest.

Roughly May to July out of Sonora, a short Northern Hemisphere window that lands between the end of the Chilean programme and the start of the Californian one.

Most of it crosses the land border rather than sailing. What does ship by sea goes to Asia rather than Europe, where Chile and Peru already cover the calendar.

Two harvests a year, roughly April to June and October to December, because vines in the irrigated São Francisco valley are pruned to a schedule rather than a season. That is the one thing worth knowing about Brazilian grapes: they arrive in months no other Southern Hemisphere origin can supply.

The autumn window in particular lands between the end of the Northern Hemisphere crop and the start of the Chilean and Peruvian ones, which is a gap with very little competition in it.

Roughly December to April, out of the Hex River valley and the Orange River region, shipping mainly through Cape Town.

This is the window where Cape Town’s wind becomes a commercial problem. High-wind days halt crane work and vessels queue, and it happens in exactly the months the grapes are moving — seasonal and recurring rather than exceptional, and it delays a shipment before the ETA has any reason to move.

Roughly May to July, landing in the gap between the end of the Southern Hemisphere programmes and the start of the European harvest. Egypt is the first Northern Hemisphere origin of the year for table grapes.

Being first is the whole position. Egyptian grapes are priced against an empty shelf, and a programme that lands three weeks late lands against Italian and Spanish fruit instead — which is a different market at a different price.

Roughly January to May out of Sunraysia and the Murray Valley, shipping through Melbourne. The window sits behind Chile’s and ahead of the Northern Hemisphere’s own crop, which makes it the late-season supply into Asia rather than a competitor for the December weeks.

Australian grapes go into markets that buy on variety as much as on origin — the newer seedless varieties carry a premium in China and Japan that the older ones do not. As with grapes everywhere, the damage happens at the end: a container sitting after discharge does more harm than a slow voyage did.

Roughly August to October out of California’s San Joaquin Valley, opening in Coachella in early summer and shipping from cold storage into December. It covers the months between the end of the Southern Hemisphere programmes and the start of the next.

A European buyer rarely sees this window, because Turkey, Egypt and southern Europe are filling the same weeks much closer to home. An Asian one sees it as the direct alternative to Australia and to the tail of the Peruvian season.

Shine Muscat runs from about August to September, opening in July on the earliest houses and finishing in October. Per kilo it is the most expensive fruit in this section by a wide margin.

It is also the most copied: the variety is now grown at scale in China and Korea, and their windows overlap this one. What a Japanese box is sold on is provenance and grading, which means the label and the pack have to arrive in as good a condition as the fruit does.

Roughly August to October out of the Aegean. It fills the weeks between the end of the Southern Hemisphere programmes and the start of the European harvest, in the same slot Egypt occupies.

Most of it reaches Europe overland and Russia by truck. The container volume is what goes further east, and on that routing the thing to watch is the far end: table grapes travel well but punish a slow discharge more than they punish a slow voyage.

Roughly February and March out of Nashik, opening in January and finishing in April. Rotterdam is about three weeks away through Nhava Sheva, which is what makes the window work at all.

India now has a large say in what a European grape costs in these weeks, because it lands as Peru finishes and while Chile and South Africa are still at sea. The catch is at the other end: Indian grapes into the EU are residue-tested closely, and a container held on arrival has spent exactly the margin the short lane was chosen for.

Roughly July to November out of Puglia and Sicily, peaking in late summer. It fills the months between the end of the Southern Hemisphere programmes and the point where Egyptian and Turkish supply has finished.

Almost all of it goes to Europe by truck, so for most buyers this is the row that explains a price rather than a row you would book against. The exception is the volume going to the Gulf and the Far East, where Italian grapes compete directly with Egypt on a lane of similar length.