Weather ‘hangover’ prevents record harvest

While the UK wine industry is hopeful of a healthy harvest, English Wine Producers has said it will fall short of a record-breaking year because of a “hangover” from the poor conditions of last year.

But as the harvest begins many in the industry are saying that the majority of vines are looking healthy and there should be a good volume to this year’s crop.

English Wine Producers spokeswoman, Julia Trustram, told the Press Association: “We had a longer winter than we would normally expect, which stretched into the beginning of the growing season this year.

“It meant that harvesting has kicked off a little later than expected. Flowering, which is normally from mid-June, was delayed by a bit but that doesn’t matter hugely.

“The long, warm summer meant that we had good growing conditions, and we are now just coming into harvest, which has been delayed by about a week to 10 days.

“The lovely summer that we had means that the vines are in really good condition, and there are a lot of good, clean bunches out there.

“We are now anticipating what we hope will be a good harvest. I don’t think it’s going to be record-breaking because there is a hangover from last year which wasn’t the best of years.

“This year has produced all the right conditions for very healthy vines and good, healthy grapes in order to make some quality wine.

“However, the next couple of weeks are still critical.”