Summer sun's not welcomed by all
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The grape harvest has started in France with a sense of urgency, says Richard Meadows.
The very hot July period has brought the harvest forward for most of the regions.
There are also some problems associated with the extreme of summer temperature, with some of the grapes getting sunburnt which isn’t great for flavours.
Champagne, for instance, is reporting a drop of about 20 per cent in total production.
Champagne produced just over 300 million bottles in 2018.
If the estimates are correct this would drop to about 240 million bottles, putting 2019 as the smallest harvest in over a decade.
The French harvest, on average, has moved earlier by 20 days over the course of the last 40 years.
It used to be said that ripe grapes were harvest almost exactly 90 days after flowering.
This gave the perfect balance of flavour ripeness, sugar ripeness and the natural reduction of acidity in the grapes.
So, what is going on now?
For sure, the grapes aren’t going to be getting their ideal ripening period. The most obvious effect is that sugar levels are going up, which means that resultant alcohol levels are going up too.
The reason that there are so many 14.7 per cent wines around is that this is the cut-off point to paying more wine duty. Above this, one pays the level of tax for sherry and port, which puts another £1 of tax on a bottle. Often wine producers have to order the labels for their bottles before they know the final alcohol levels in their wines.
They can guesstimate what the wine will be and the UK government allows for a 0.5 per cent error variation either way.
Hence a 15.2 per cent wine can be labelled as 14.7 per cent and pays the lower tax rate.
Last year was a record harvest for domestic wine production in the UK. However, the 2018 total is still only about 12 million bottles.
Not really enough to make a dent in the French fizz market.
Sadly, the British harvest is going to be down this year too.
Quality is reported to be really good, but the actual harvest won’t be beginning until the end of September running through into October.
Until the grapes are in the tanks and fermenting, the chickens definitely can’t be counted when it comes to British weather!
Richard Meadows worked with a national wine chain for 10 years before setting up his own company in Edinburgh in 1999. Richard, a regular visitor to the Highlands, now employs 15 people and sells via mail order and the internet as Great Grog.
