Germany has recorded its smallest wine harvest in 15 years, the final estimate released on Tuesday from the German Wine Institute (DWI) showed.<\/p>\n
This year’s harvest is expected to yield 7.3 million industry-standard hectolitres of grape must \u2013 even less than estimated about a week ago. Grape must is the freshly crushed juice used in the first stage of making wine. A hectolitre is equal to 100 litres.<\/p>\n
The last time winemakers in Germany’s 13 wine-growing regions produced a smaller harvest was in 2010, with 7.1 million hectolitres, DWI spokesman Ernst B\u00fcscher said in Bodenheim in the west German wine-growing state of Rhineland-Palatinate.<\/p>\n
This year’s yield is projected to be 7% lower than the previous year and 16% below the 10-year average of 8.7 million hectolitres.<\/p>\n
Recently, the Federal Statistical Office had estimated a yield of around 8.2 million hectolitres for this year based on preliminary data.<\/p>\n
Significant losses in top wine-growing regions<\/strong><\/p>\n The sharp decline is primarily attributed to significantly lower yields in Germany’s four largest wine-growing regions: Rhine Hesse, Palatinate, Baden and W\u00fcrttemberg, B\u00fcscher explained.<\/p>\n “Smaller grape berries, below-average must yields and, above all, intensive grape selection following heavy rainfall in mid-September have led to an estimated 23% drop in harvests in Rhine Hesse alone, or nearly 600,000 hectolitres compared to the 10-year average,” he said.<\/p>\n Highly concentrated and fruity wines expected<\/strong><\/p>\n However, some wine-growing regions that suffered severe late frost damage in 2024 are seeing better yields this year, B\u00fcscher noted. These include the eastern regions of Saxony and Saale-Unstrut, as well as the Ahr, which are reporting triple-digit percentage increases compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n Additionally, the Moselle and Franconia regions are expected to see slightly above-average harvest volumes this year.<\/p>\n All 13 wine-growing regions agree on the assessment of wine quality: Due to the exceptionally high ripeness of the grapes, the quality is considered “outstandingly good.”<\/p>\n “While the grape berries were often smaller this year, they were all the more aromatic, which is expected to result in highly concentrated and fruity wines,” B\u00fcscher said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany has recorded its smallest wine harvest in 15 years, the final estimate released on Tuesday from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,168540,1824,16976,168542,168541],"class_list":{"0":"post-516670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-german-wine-institute","11":"tag-germany","12":"tag-harvest","13":"tag-hectolitres","14":"tag-wine-growing"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115411519013687278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}