Comments on Vintage are cautious, but some voices estimate a decline in the harvest of around 20% for the province of Mendoza, compared to last year. This means between 4 and 5 million bushels less. However, the quality of the grapes did not decline.
With 70% of the 2008 vintage in the cellars, both of San Juan and Mendoza, next week will be crucial to assess the quantity of grapes entered this year. Reductions in grapes for wine appear to show a decline that would be around between 20% and 25%, according to the winemakers. For high quality wines expectations are very high and the Uco Valley seems to be one of his best years, despite the arrival in the vats just starting for these wines. One of the main reasons for this decline were the bad weather earlier in the year. A classic frost and hailstorms, rains this year were added in the month of January. Rainfall in the last two weeks of January and February worried winemakers and engineers in charge of the vineyards around the country. Specifically: January rainfall month were well above average, reaching, according to the weather station located in the CCT Mendoza General San Martin Park, 100.6 mm, while the average is 35.7 mm. It was the highest reading for a January since 1983 While February rainfall reached 46 mm by 6 mm surpassing the average of the second month of the year (40 mm). However, good management in the vineyard and calendar enabled healing in problematic inks prevent outbreaks, while white and native grapes were affected in some areas of the province. : Fewer grapes Although there is no official confirmation, and most of the big players in the wine industry estimates that the volume of this harvest will be lower than last year. In 2007 20.434.350 bushels of grapes for wine, fresh consumption were collected and dried in the province of Mendoza. If we only grapes for wine in 2007 20.378.029 bushels were harvested, the estimated reduction around between 4 million and 5 million quintals least for this vintage. The president of the National Wine Institute, Juan Carlos Jaliff clarified that we can not advance any wastage rate. In Comparative every week the quantity of grapes is similar, although I must admit that the contexts were different. The impression is that there is a reduction, but we will not know exactly until within 20 days. To Bodegas de Argentina, still can not talk about the final harvest numbers. Missing at least two weeks to make strong statements, there are conditions that have fewer grapes. However, one must be cautious to avoid speculation, Juan Carlos Pina Cellars Argentina manager said. Consulted by FARMS, production manager Fecovita (which includes 31 cooperatives across the province with 5,000 producers) was cautious and said that we do not have guidance on this issue and we have to manage with what you post on INV. However, in consultation with unions and evaluations permanently do, we can assert that there are forecasts that speak of a loss that would be around between 15% and 20%, but will have to wait at least one more week to have the facts. This has almost completed the departments of San Martín, Junín, Rivadavia, Santa Rosa and La Paz are now ending with the lower income crops of grapes to wineries shows. In this regard, Javier Palau, president of the Center for Eastern winemakers and winery owners and winemaker in the area, said the botrytis was important in the month of February in the area, but I must admit that the damage caused was not large because the affected grapes were lost in the vineyard and have not paid sick grape. I think the quality of basic wines are not affected by this. The only problem is the decline in the strength of grapes, but nothing more. Premium wines: the challenge is the vineyard Although the bulk of the crop is finished, for those making premium wines that just begun. Some combined climatic factors have grapes this year have had a slower ripening, which predicts a great year for high quality viticulture. This week I started with the harvest, said Silvio Alberto, production manager Andeluna Cellars, the winery magnate Ward Lay potato chips. This has been a year in which the vineyard management has allowed the vines to achieve support the amount of water we had, Alberto said, adding that we are getting a balanced grapes and alcoholic wines are structured and maturation polyphenolic exceptional addition to perfect healing. The 2008 wines will be better than 2007, both in color, such as fruit. Daniel Pi, Trapiche Winery Winemaker Chief said that the characteristics that we saw this vintage is that this was a cooler year, therefore the maturation of the berries was slower than usual. For whites, have a firm acidity and lower alcohol content. In some places where vineyard management was not adequate were observed pockets of fungal diseases, which do not seriously affect the quality of the wines, he said. For reds, the slower ripening conditions are reflected in the colors and outstanding intensity and soft tannins. We have also noticed that azucarina maturity is closely related to the phenolic maturity. We are very surprised by the quality of this vintage and it’s very different from what we have been accustomed to seeing in the last 4 or 5 years. Fight hail, a little better
According to a report this week by international experts at the Ministry of Production, Technology and Innovation of the province, the damage on the set of regions protected by the anti hail struggle during the 2007-2008 season, were 33% lower compared to the average of the last ten years. During compaña fighting that began on October 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008 29 storm cells that produced crop damage were reported. In this period 90 severe storms in the province of Mendoza, which involved over 420 hours turn to cloud seeding or patrol warned.
