We recently got back from Austria and of course we were wondering how the vineyards had coped with the huge amounts of rain that came around the 20th of September.
”We will have one of the smallest harvests for many years”, says Franz Leth Jr, at Weingut Franz Leth in Wagram in Lower Austria. But the fact is that it is not because of the rain. “We had massive frost damage in April. We didn’t need the heavy rain (280-300 mm) but it didn’t do that much damage to the grapes.” He is happy with the quality though and that is the case with all the wine growers we met.
But most of them will have smaller volumes. Birgit Braunstein in Burgenland brought in her harvest before the rain. But she will still only get 50 % of a normal harvest. But yes, some growers did unfortunately suffer from the rain.
The harvest started very early this year in Austria due to early budding of the vines and periods of very hot weather during summer. At 2 million hectolitres, the volume of wine will be considerably lower than the average over the last few years, says Austrian Wines.
