480,000 hectoliters.
There will have been no surprise, the 2023 harvest is indeed the shortest ever recorded in the Pyrénées-Orientales vineyards, due to drought.
This is the first time that it has fallen below 500,000 hectoliters.
However, we are far from the forecasts of mid-summer, when it was rumored that we would probably fall below 400,000 hectos.
If the results are better than expected, this does not detract from the seriousness of the situation for winegrowers and companies in the sector.
Everyone is waiting for the Minister of Agriculture to announce the content of the grubbing-up measures discussed with Europe at the start of the year.
“We remember the last major restructuring but I fear that what is happening will be even worse” worries François Pourcelot, director of the department's SAFER.
Nearly 10,000 ha were then uprooted to resolve the overproduction of natural sweet wines in particular.
For what will happen, there are approximately 17,000 ha left, no one really dares to make a prediction.
But thousands of hectares are at stake.
Few solutions
In the general meetings of the appellations, the tension is palpable as the treasuries are stretched.
Should we increase the prices of sweet wines to compensate for the lack of volume and take the risk of losing markets?
Should we make more savings on structures?
There are not many solutions.
The paradoxes, on the other hand, multiply.
There is a shortage of natural sweet wines, muscats for example, and stocks are melting…
Also read “We have less water than in Marrakech”: in the Pyrénées-Orientales, we have been waiting for rain for two years
“Producers should not abandon Rivesaltes or Muscats, even if I can understand that this is not a priority because with dry wines the money comes in faster” explains François Capdelayre, president of the Rivesaltes appellation and the Baixas cooperative cellar.
A sign of the times, no winegrower has settled in the Pyrénées-Orientales in 2023. This is also probably a first.
And 2024?
In the vineyards, an even more modest harvest is already being announced.
The vines grew so little last year that pruning was difficult.
It still doesn't rain and all the elders say it: "We've never seen that."
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