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The harvest, which this year began in the second half of September, has now come to an end after a good four weeks. The rapid progress in ripening, the compactly developing grape structures and the forecast of unsettled weather conditions meant that the harvest was consistent even in regions with a late-ripening grape variety profile.
The quantities brought in were again lower than forecast at the beginning of the harvest. According to the German Wine Institute (DWI), the current harvest estimate for the nationwide wine must harvest is 8.4 million hectolitres. The forecast was 8.6 million hectolitres. This is 19 percent below the previous year's volume in the exceptionally high-yield year 2018 and about four percent below the ten-year average of 8.8 million hectolitres.
Due to the drought and extreme heat in the course of the vegetation, but also due to sunburn damage to the grapes as well as regionally limited periods of frost and hailstorms, it was possible to draw conclusions early on about a lower harvest volume. However, there are large yield differences among the 13 German wine-growing regions as well as within the individual regions.
In the three largest German wine-growing regions of Rheinhessen, Pfalz and Baden, the newly forecast values of minus 3 to minus 1 percent fluctuate only slightly around the ten-year average. With a decline of 22 percent, the yield declines in Franconia due to sunburn, drought stress, hailstorms and late frosts were higher than expected; producers in the Saale-Unstrut wine-growing region also suffered a significant yield decline of minus 19 percent due to major drought damage. On the Ahr, wine producers put the loss at about one third compared to the previous year, which represents a 15 percent loss compared to the 10-year average. Producers in Saxony, on the other hand, can be pleased about a probable plus of 6 percent compared to the previous year.
(uka / Photo: German Wine Institute)