The scarce rains, combined with exceptionally high temperatures, have advanced the harvest of the grapes, which is expected to be lower than the average of recent years but still of a good quality.
Never before has the harvest started as early as this year in Vallbona de les Monges. On Tuesday, August 16, L’Olivera began the harvest campaign more than 15 days earlier than usual, a fact that makes this harvest the earliest since 1989, when L’Olivera first began to make wine.
This is basically due to the scarce rainfall this year (which only added to the drought of last year) and the high temperatures of spring and summer, which have led to situations of extreme drought in the vineyard, and in general throughout Catalonia. This has drastically increased the water stress of the plants, which had already been stressed since winter and, consequently, this has affected their development, resulting is a smaller grape and a very advanced ripening also due to the low thermal oscillation between day and night in the spring-summer season in the Valls del Riu Corb subzone.
It is expected, therefore, that the harvest will be lower, between 10 and 15% less. On the up side, the low humidity has meant that the vineyard has not been affected by fungal diseases, so a healthy and high quality grape is expected.
It remains to be seen how the weather evolves in the coming days, which will mark the evolution of the ripening of the grapes and determine the final volume of the 2022 harvest.
The harvest in Can Calopa
In the Can Calopa de Dalt vineyard, in the Collserola Natural Park, in Barcelona, the situation is quite similar. The initial forecast were for a good harvest -thanks, in part, to good rainfall during the winter- but a very dry summer has changed the forecasts: the grapes have become small and the ripening is not uniform. As in the area of Costers del Segre, in Can Calopa the harvest will also be advanced by between 10 and 15 days for some varieties such as Grenache and Merlot.
To all this we must add the pressure of the fauna, especially the wild boar, which for years has already forced measures to be taken, such as the placement of nets in the vineyard. Measures, however, that this year have not been enough, since the advanced ripening of the grapes has also led to the presence of wild boars, both in Can Calopa and in the vineyard that L’Olivera manages in the Agricultural Park of Sabadell.
In all, it is expected that the harvest will be a little shorter than usual, with lower yields but with good grape health.