10 November 2011
NEW YORK: Winemakers around the globe are encountering a mixed 2011 grape harvest with those north of the equator facing challenges, while their southern neighbors have plentiful grapes of good quality.
In Europe, Spain reported a slight decline in production. Italian wine makers had their smallest harvests in 60 years and the French Agriculture Ministry enjoyed a bumper crop.
Eric Aracil, head of the Roussillon winemakers association, described the harvest as perfect.
“It was bountiful both in quantity and in quality,” he said.
But winemakers in California, who are responsible for about 90 percent of the wines made in the United States, saw their vineyards pummeled by spring rains and threatened by fall mold. Some grape growers lost between 40 and 80 percent of their crop depending on the varietal.
“I think you’d be hard pressed to find a winemaker that wasn’t affected,” said Alison Crowe, of Garnet Vineyards, which is known for its Pinot Noir wines. She described the Zinfandel crop as “a debacle.”
Ryan Pennington, a spokesman for the wine commission in Washington state, said, “Overall, we expect our total crop to be down somewhere between 25 and 30 percent.”
But conditions were better north of the border in British Columbia, where vintners are extremely happy with the fruit quality of the 2011 vintage and the yields were average, according to the BC Wine Institute, which represents 119 wineries in the province. Argentina, Australia, Chile and New Zealand all reported increases in their yields.
Copyright The Daily Star 2011.
