The harvest of typical blue grape varieties harvested so far in the Villány wine region is of average quantity and excellent quality, where the harvest until the end of October is currently in full swing, said the secretary of the mountain village council of the approximately 2,350-hectare grape-growing area.
Gergely Nagy pointed out: this summer there were several prolonged, rainy and humid periods in the wine region, so the farmers had to pay serious attention to plant protection. Although some plantations were damaged by downy mildew, the vast majority were able to avoid it.
The picking of white grape varieties, which account for barely twenty percent of the Villány wine region, has already been completed almost everywhere, but the blue grape bunches for rosé and siller have also been removed from the vines. The harvest of kéo port, which produces Portuguese red wine known as a specialty of the wine region, is still going on, but the merlot variety is also being harvested. Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, which have the largest production area, are also harvested by the middle of October, at the latest.
According to the analyzes carried out so far, the quantity of the crop is expected to be only average, but the quality promises to be excellent, provided that the weather in the following weeks will be similar to or drier than the long-term average.
In the wine region, about 6,000 hectares of land can be planted with grapes, and the actual cultivated size changes only slightly from year to year. Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc are grown on the largest part of the currently 2,350-hectare vineyard - 390 and 341 hectares, respectively - while 308 hectares produce Merlot, 303 hectares Kékfrankos, and 294 hectares Kékóport.
Today, a third of the harvest is done with harvesters due to the increasingly difficult availability of human labor, and an increasing number of plantations are being made suitable for mechanization. In addition to harvesting, certain green work (such as cutting back shoots and pre-harvest leaf thinning) is also carried out with machines in many vineyards.
Although the Villány wines are high-quality, popular and sellable, at the same time the local wineries also have to make more and more serious efforts, they spend more and more on marketing, appear on new sales channels and with new products, and try to follow the changes in consumer habits.
MTI
