Alentejo predicts 5% to 10% increase in wine production

Editor 05 August 2019

Alentejo predicts 5% to 10% increase in wine production The Alentejo region is predicted to have an increase of 5% to 10% in wine production, meaning it could produce between 115 to 120 million litres this year.

For the past 20 years, the Alentejo Regional Wine Commission (ARWC) has been using pollen forecasting through a partnership with University of Porto’s Faculty of Sciences in order to aid in forecasting the annual yield of wine. This year’s forecast, achieved by collecting pollen in the flowering stage, points to a noticeable rise in production.

If the forecast is correct, the region could end up producing between 115 and 120 million litres of wine, higher than the average of the last five years, which was 110 million.

Francisco Mateus, president of AWRC, points out that “forecasting is an essential tool for calculating stock levels, and the responsiveness to market needs”, but added that “weather will dictate the amount of grapes that will be produced in the Alentejo”.

The region, which is among the largest in Portugal, with approximately 56000 acres of vineyards, is already one of the major producers in the country, and it is expected that the harvest operations will be taking place until the end of September.

Comments

+3 #3 Elspeth Macmillan 2019-08-11 08:52

The cork industry is diversifying rapidly. and needs to, since many people prefer not battling with corkscrews. However. I think champagne and all "fizzy"wines will always need corks.
I am glad to hear farmers are planting almonds, since numbers have declined since I came here 31 years ago, and I am very sick of buying Californian almonds, especially given their ridiculous and dangerous practice of monoculture. Thank God Portugal is not short of bees, unlike many other countries, and bees mean food.

+2 #2 AL 2019-08-09 10:32

Quoting Darcy:

Furthermore, Portugal accounts for 70% of cork production in the World and this doesn't happen by farmers removing this very valuable cash crop from their land.

Also the cork oak is a protected tree in Portugal so nobody is going to remove them, hence an ignorant comment made by Dennis.

-5 #1 Dennis.P 2019-08-06 18:12

10 years or so back we had idiocy of a UK film crew doing a wildlife review in the Alentejo based on how much use a cork Oak - as with north European sessile etc oaks - are to flora and fauna. That angle meaningless to the average Portuguese but the other angle that became apparent near the end was to keep alive the cork bottling industry against the increasing switch to plastic. One mega landowner memorably finishing his piece to the camera with - "if there is no money in cork we must dig up these trees and plant something that makes us money". Now we all know what replaced them - endless thousands of hectares of olives, vines and now increasingly almonds! Paid with huge EU development grants given to the already rich landowners to dig up their cork oaks !

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