Viticulture: The 2024 vintage is in the cellars

Word from winegrowers, the years in 4 are “always complicated”! The 2024 vintage was no exception to the rule. Precipitation was close to records, and with it mildew. After the harvest, “the time is rather for relief”, indicates the Vaud Wine Office (OVV) in a press release. The heavy rains having arrived after the determining period for the harvest – i.e. one hundred days after flowering – “the quality of the grapes was done”, explains François Montet, president of the Vaudoise Winegrowers’ Federation (FVV). Despite the feeling of a terribly rainy summer, summer precipitation remained close to, or even below, the norm of the last thirty years, according to data from the Pully meteorological station. This weather particularly pleased Pinot Noir, which does not like heat. “Will this vintage be a gem for the many fans of the Burgundian grape variety?” asks the OVV.

The quantity, on the other hand, does not reach the 2022 and 2023 harvests and should be below the quotas. “According to forecasts, the number of bottles produced in 2024 will correspond to market demand,” estimate industry professionals. So, 2024, annus horribilis? “History shows that there have been much worse!” comments Olivier Viret, head of the vitiviniculture competence center of the State of Vaud. “It is true that the precipitation this September was exceptional, with more than 221 mm, compared to 98 mm on average over the last thirty years, but the temperatures were within normal limits.”

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