Early
predictions for the harvest show a fall in yield of as much as 40%. The various
parties involved: the growers, the bodegas and the Consejo Regulador are agreed
that a major reduction in yield as compared with 2013 will be anywhere between
30% and 40%. 2012 was also a very small harvest due to drought, but produced very healthy, if small grapes.
Less than
two months before the harvest begins, the main worry is that a shortage of
grapes will mean lower incomes for growers from musts or grapes sold to
bodegas. However the situation should be put into the context of last year’s
exceptional harvest which produced 82 million kilos of which 63.5 million
qualified for Sherry production, equivalent to 89,000 butts.
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| (Imagen: Reporteros Jerez) |
This year
the projected production will be between 50-57 million kilos, not far from a
normal yield which, along with the high production of last year will be
sufficient to cover the renewal of stocks in the bodegas. Although sales of
wine continue to slow, growing sales of vinegar will partly compensate. In
fact, the growers calculate that in the production bodegas there remain 15,000
butts of last year’s wine, much of which may be declassified and sold as basic
wine outside the region.
Predictions
must be treated with caution, however. It is the weather during the month of
August which decides the course of the vintage. So far the weather has been
good, but there has been little rainfall, and if the Levante wind predominates,
it’s hot, drying effect will reduce the crop quite dramatically.
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