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The Moselwein e.V. in Trier evaluates the 2019 vintage on the Moselle as a "vintage with many weather capers, high quality and smaller quantity than expected". While in late summer, a harvest quantity above the ten-year average of 754,000 hectolitres was still expected, the current estimates of the Moselle Winegrowers' Association now assume just under 694,000 hectolitres of must. That is eight percent less than the average of the past ten years. Compared to 2018, the harvest volume in the Mosel wine growing region will be a quarter less. Despite frost in spring, hail, drought, heat and sunburn in summer and rain in autumn, the winegrowers have produced grapes "that offer the potential for a great vintage and at peak times even deliver better quality than in 2018".
The vintage in the entire wine-growing region was characterised by a weather-related phenomenon that was new in this area: Everywhere in the wine-growing region sunburn damage to grapes occurred to an unprecedented extent as a result of the record heat with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. The damage occurred very unevenly, both in defoliated and non-defoliated plants. In some vineyards, winegrowers reported up to 50 percent crop losses due to sunburn.
According to Moselwein e.V., the average yield per hectare is currently 82 hectolitres according to current estimates. These figures ranged from just 20 hectolitres per hectare to 100 hectolitres in plants that had been spared from weather problems. Yields often fluctuated considerably even within individual wine villages and vineyards. 2019 is therefore likely to be remembered by many producers as an "envious autumn".
(uka / Photo: Moselwein e.V. - Ralf Kaiser)