Latest News

Italy Vintage Report

1st October, 2012

David has been in Italy this week checking the progress of the harvest. He reports that the 2012 vintage is going to be one of the most challenging vintages he’s seen in the past 25 years.

2012 will be even smaller than 2011, which was itself the smallest vintage since the second world war. This is partly due to poor weather at flowering and the subsequent drought. The Pinot Grigio harvest at Monteforte is down by 30% on last year, although the quality is excellent, with rich and perfumed wines. While it was hot and dry during the summer, there were sufficient cool periods, especially at night, to ensure decent perfumes and acidities.

Because of the small 2011 vintage, stocks of wines held in wineries at the end of July this year were at their lowest level on record. Due to the small crop and the low level of stocks, the prices of grapes and bulk wines are rising throughout Italy. At Liberty Wines, it is likely that prices will rise across the board. Only Prosecco will remain stable, as a lot of new vineyards have come into production and grape prices have actually fallen a bit this year.

The vintage is also small in both France and Spain, where bulk prices are also firming up. We’re expecting price increases from both countries.

This isn’t what we want, given the state of the economy, but Mother Nature doesn’t seem to pay much attention to the economy when deciding what sort of vintage she is going to give us.