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How does the harvest quantity influence the wine quality?
The yield of the vine is one of the main factors influencing the quality of the wine. Basically, the lower the yield, the higher the quality of the wine. This effect is due to the fact that the fewer grapes hanging on the vine, the greater the extract of the individual grapes.
The vine reproduces itself through the grapes. When the berries are ripe, they fall off the vine and new plants can form from the seeds. By nature, the vine tries to ensure its survival by producing as many grapes as possible. However, through the way the vine is trained and pruned, the vintner prevents this and leaves only a few shoots, from which grapes can then develop. As a result, the vine tries to make the remaining berries as robust and resistant as possible by concentrating the ingredients in order to survive. Thus, the few grapes then contain more sugar, acids, aromatic substances, colouring agents and - in the case of red grapes - tannins, so that the resulting wine ultimately has more substance, body, character and structure; the overall extract is higher, the wine is of higher quality.
Yield restrictions therefore apply to all quality wines: Only a limited amount of grapes may be harvested and processed per year if the wine is to bear the corresponding designation of origin. The vintner already takes this into account in winter and spring when he prunes the vines, and can also reduce the yield afterwards through further measures such as thinning out.