Catalan winegrowers are in a bad mood: the 2024 harvest is catastrophic! Volumes are half the average, due to climatic hazards. Yields have dropped by 50% and winegrowers are demanding state aid.
Volumes are down, at a level never seen before. The small Maury cooperative, founded in 1910 in the Fenouillèdes, has never experienced such a catastrophe.
Jérôme Semper cultivates 17 hectares in this sector which extends to the north of the Pyrénées-Orientales, on the Agly basin. In June, his vines experienced a difficult flowering, and he suspected since that the yields would not be good.
A few days before the end of the harvest, it is fixed. It will be even worse: volumes down by 50%.
Unfortunately, I suffered the vagaries of hail in the spring and now an extreme drought. A lack of rain which means that the berries have not grown. This is historically low and dramatic for Roussillon viticulture.
Jérôme Semper, Catalan winegrower
“Usually, we manage to make 15,000 hectoliters. We are a small family structure on a human scale. This year, we are heading towards 10,000 hectoliters. It has never been so low, unfortunately.“, laments Aurélie Pereira, director of the Maury Cooperative.
For both cooperatives and winegrowers, this 50% drop compromises the profitability of the structures.
During their meeting with the prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales, at the Tautavel cooperative on Monday September 16, the main unions in the profession called for measures to enable farms to survive.
Local professionals are asking for 2,000 to 2,500 euros per hectare, or aid of 40 to 45 million for the entire department.
“If we only take the cooperative wineries, we already produce 100 million euros in the department each year. If they disappear, that’s 100 million euros that won’t be redistributed. So, 45 million euros to last another 15 to 20 years is a smaller amount.“, estimated David Drilles, president of the Winegrowers’ Union (66).
But the State’s response depends on the unprecedented political situation: winegrowers will have to be patient until the government and a new Minister of Agriculture are appointed.
Written with P.Georget.
