News & Events

2011 Harvest in Germany Begins

The harvest of the 2011 vintage has begun earlier than usual at August 8th in the German wine region of Rheinhessen. The Palatinian vintners (region of PFALZ) as well as other regions will follow within the next days.

The early start to this year's harvest is due to the very early flowering of the grapes, which happened at the end of May. As a result, the physiological development of the grapes is about two weeks ahead compared to the long term average, which is deemed to be good news by producers as the grapes will have a longer time to ripen.

The harvest started with the picking of early ripening grape varieties for the production of the popular light wines known as "Federweissen" which commenced extraordinarily early this year.

The beginning of the main harvest of varieties such as Müller-Thurgau or the white Pinot varieties is expected to take place in first weeks of September. The harvest of later ripening varieties like Riesling is not expected to start before the end of September.

At present, German winegrowers are optimistic about a really good vintage in 2011, but it will be important to see how the weather develops in the coming weeks and especially during the harvest time in September and October.

 

 

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