A few weeks after harvest 2020 has concluded in the hills of Monferrato, a Piedmontese wine area of over 11,000 hectares of vineyards and 13 protected appellations, the President of the Consorzio Barbera d’Asti e Vini del Monferrato, Filippo Mobrici, shares his harvest notes:
“The 2020 harvest surprised us in a decisively positive way, exceeding the already good expectations of our forecasts. Not an abundant vintage, but certainly characterized by a very high quality.
Regarding the harvest period, if we look at the last decades, we could consider this slightly earlier. But if we compare the 2020 harvest with those of the last five years, we can instead say that it is in line with the past. This also leads us to reflect on climate change, the way it affects the rhythms of the crops. The very rainy spring caused some difficulties for winemakers, who had to deal with the onset of some diseases such as downy mildew. But the stabilization of the weather and the excellent climate in September allowed the grapes to grow healthy, avoiding any risk. We practically had no problems with rot in the vineyard and, fortunately, even hailstorms have not compromised our territory.
In any case, as regards to our reference sector, the 2020 harvest recorded a minimum increase in the harvest compared to the previous year, equal to about 6%.
A fact that is also linked to the issue of stocks, about which we have spoken out on more than one occasion, underlining how our world, that of Monferrato wines, has had no problems in this sense. To make myself clear, using numbers, for example, looking at the month of September2019 – that is, the peak of harvest – we are about 10 thousand hectoliters of wine lower. This is certainly an indicative signal, which shows how our sector has held up well despite some unjustified alarms raised during the summer.
Waiting to find out what the evolution and decisions related to the consequences of the health crisis will be, which we hope will not lead to drastic consequences that would irreversibly damage an entire economic and production system, I confirm, in any case, the largely positive judgment on the Monferrato harvest”.
With over 65 million bottles and more than 11 thousand hectares of vineyards, equal to about 30% of the DOC and DOCG area of Piedmont, the Consorzio Barbera d’Asti e Vini del Monferrato protects 13 denominations, 4 Docg (Barbera d’Asti, Nizza, Ruchè di Castagnole Monferrato and Terre Alfieri) and 9 Doc (Albugnano, Cortese dell’Alto Monferrato, Dolcetto d’Asti, Freisa d’Asti, Grignolino d’Asti, Loazzolo, Malvasia di Castelnuovo Don Bosco, Monferrato and Piemonte).
