Diseases will reduce wine production to 230,000 kites

Vine diseases, especially late blight, will affect this year's wine production in the demarcated Douro region

The Duriense Viticulture Development Association (ADVID ), whose forecasts based on the pollen method, indicated a flowering potential between 254,000 and 273,000 kites (550 liters each). On Thursday, the general manager, Rosa Amador, revised the forecasts down to values ​​that could "be around or even lower than the harvest last year," which was 232,000 barrels. In summary, this figure should be about 230,000 kites, although this will depend on the weather conditions that will occur until September.

This year's forecast was originally "lower than last year's". But given the conditions that still exist in the region in July, as in the case of the still active mildew, the scenario will be even worse than expected and "even the minimum interval of 254,000 kites will not". will not arrive. " "This is not a repeatable situation in recent years," said Rosa Amador, noting that at the ADVID meeting on Thursday, "we compared 2018 with 1988, which was 30 years ago. "

"at this time of year is justified by Rosa Amador with" a lot of moisture in the soil ".This led to a" very fast vegetative expansion ", which means" that there is no time to enter the vineyard and do the treatments. "To make matters worse," there is a lack of manpower "and many vineyards with" reduced mechanization "

In fact, 2018 is" a year out of the ordinary. "ADVID's general manager confirms that" no one was waiting for a year like this ". , "the vegetative cycle is delayed by about 10 days, which will certainly make the harvest later."

The large amount of moisture that still exists in the soil can also lead to "rot" so "preventative measures must be taken to prevent this." That's it, says the manager, "it's possible to finish the grapes that exist, the harvest will have e "quality." In fact, "the story says that mold years are vintage years (special category of Port wine)."

The last year that the Douro had major problems of mildew was in 2016, with sudden production failures. some parcels. However, "it was a good year in terms of quality", which is also "expected for 2018", and despite that, "this year is not as bad as in 2016".

ADVID relies on their predictions in the pollen method, so that they do not take into account post-floral factors, which can alter the harvest potential. This is the case of recent storms with heavy rains and hail that have damaged vineyards in several areas of the Douro delimited region, but the impact of the next harvest is not yet known

. The Interprofessional Council of the Wine Institute of Douro and Porto established the profit for this year's harvest (amount of must that each producer can turn into port wine) in the 116 thousand kites. The decision was unanimously taken by the body at the table of which the two professions of the delimited region of the Douro: production and trade