The harvest in Europe: increasing quantities, but there are many problems for France and Spain

The harvest 2020 in Old Europe will mark a decisive leap forward, in quantitative terms, on 2019: +5.9 million hectoliters. If Italy will produce 1% less wine, however, remaining the world’s leading producer with 47.2 million hectoliters, France will go to 44.7 million hectoliters (+3.1%), Spain will stand at 43 million hectoliters (+12.8%), Germany at 8.7 million hectoliters (+4.5%) and Portugal will drop to 6.3 million hectoliters (-5.7%). Thus, in a conference of forecasts by Assoenologi, Unione Italiana Vini (UIV) and Ismea, Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, Secretary General Ceev - Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins.
He also pointed out the difficulties of our competitors. Starting from France, where Champagne producers have decided to cut yields by 22% (from 102 to 80 quintals per hectare), the requests for crisis distillation concerned 3.19 million hectoliters, with 60% of requests coming from Bordeaux and Languedoc, two of the wine regions most affected by the collapse of the French market, where Trump’s duties on French wine and the crisis linked to the Coronavirus emergency led to a 25% drop in exports in the first half of 2020.
In Spain, on the other hand, the strong increase in production will lead to predictable price drops, estimated in Castilla-La Mancha in the order of -25-30%, against a production growth of +15%. For the Cava, the price of the grapes oscillates between 30 and 75 cents per kilo, so much so that the denomination has decided to cut the yield from 120 to 100 quintals per hectare. There, crisis distillation affected 2 million hectoliters, but stocks are still at important levels: in the Spanish cellars there are still 46.6 million hectoliters of wines and musts.