Coverage in decanter.com
Anecdotally, many English winemakers expect this year’s harvest to be down by between 20% and 70%.
‘We are down to about half of what we would expect in a normal year, and around one-third of last year’s record crop,’ said Vranken Pommery’s cellar master Clément Pierlot.
‘From January through to today, we haven’t had a window of more than six days without rain, so it has been super challenging. On 1 August, we had 40ml of rain in an hour. It was so localised, just here and in an adjacent vineyard. That was at the most sensitive period for downy mildew in the UK.
Fred Langdale, vineyard director at Exton Park, which is around 10 miles south of Pommery’s vineyard in Hampshire, is also facing substantial losses. ‘The quality of the fruit was actually good, but the quantity was down around 20% on what we anticipated at the beginning of the season,’ he said.
Duncan Schwab, head winemaker at Sandridge Barton in Devon, expects volumes to be down by 70% compared to last year. He added that many producers in the southwest of England have experienced similar declines.
The Standard reports on Chapel Down’s poor harvest:
Shares in the Kent-based business dropped after it said the harvest is set to be half the size of 2023 and it was expecting to make a loss this year.