Vega Sicilia reveals frost damage figures

About 40% of the crop at Vega Sicilia’s Macan vineyards, a project between the Spanish winery and Benjamin Rothschild in Rioja, was damaged by the severe frost that recently struck northern Spain, the winery CEO has revealed.

The Vega Sicilia wines presented by winery CEO Pablo Alvarez in Hong Kong at Hip Cellar

Located in San Vincente de la Sonsierra, to the southeast of Haro in Rioja Alta, about 40% of Macan’s 80-ha vineyards were badly affected by the cold snap, says winery CEO Pablo Alvarez when asked by dbHK at a wine dinner in Hong Kong.

Temperatures in Haro, Conicero and Fonzaleche dropped below zero and remained below freezing point for a few hours, worsening the damages on the vines.

In Ribero del Duero where the winery’s famous ‘Unico’ is produced, about 10% of vineyards were affected by the recent frost, the damage relatively less severe compared with other wineries in Bierzo or Galicia thanks to the winery’s deployment of wind machines in the vineyards. “It happened two weeks ago, temperature dropped to -9 ºC and it was terrible,” said Alvarez.

“It’s very rare to see frost of this scale”, he added, citing the early spring frost in 2001 in Spain as a close comparison.

Asked if the crop loss is going to affect prices for 2017 vintage, Alvarez said, “I feel like the prices for the grapes are going to increase. For us, we don’t need to buy in, but obviously the grapes [prices] are going to be more expensive.”

The Macan project was born out of a collaboration between Alvarez and Benjamin Rothschild in 2003, and the vineyards were purchased from different wineries over a period of more than 10 years.

In other parts of Spain such as Bierzo, initial estimates show that between 70-80% of the vineyards have been damaged by the frost, and the region has been declared a “disaster” zone.