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The European Commission warns of increasing instability in wine production. According to estimates from Brussels, Europe will see a sharp decline in its wine production, as evidenced by the large fluctuations in harvest volumes in recent years. France in particular suffered from a 27 per cent smaller production in 2021 than in 2020 due to frost and bad weather, while Italy's harvest volume is nine per cent lower and Spain's is 15 per cent lower. As these three countries account for around 80 percent of European wine production, 2021 will bring the lowest harvest since 2017 - the smallest vintage in 20 years - and is eleven percent below the five-year average.
"For almost ten years, production has fluctuated from one year to the next to a much greater extent than in the previous decade. This instability in volumes produced appears to be the direct consequence of increasingly unpredictable and increasingly frequent major climatic hazards," says the European Commission's Staement. In view of these climate change consequences, it has increased its aid for crop insurance by 10 percentage points.
(al / source: vitisphere; photo: wikimedia commons)