Grape harvest in early September, Luxembourg to have an excellent red wine season

A sunny spring and a dry summer have hastened the first grape harvest this year. According to the estimates of Moselle winegrowers, it will begin around September 5. This is about three weeks earlier than usual.

The dry climate is ideal for grape varieties that produce quality red wine. There will be a lot of it in 2022 in Luxembourg. Prospects for white wines are not so obvious yet, experts say.

The heat helps the grapes reach ideal ripeness. But the vineyards have already experienced its negative effects. When the temperature in the Grand Duchy approached 40 degrees Celcius, many berries were simply burned by the hot sun. And thus became unfit for wine.

If the heat does not subside by the beginning of September, the grape harvest will have to be conducted early in the morning, before 11 o’clock. After that, the grapes will become too hot.

In 2021, due to the cold spring and varied weather in the summer, the grape harvest came late and was not so voluminous. From it the vineyards were able to produce about 100,000 hectoliters of wine. Now the vineyards of the country hope to seriously surpass last year’s numbers.

It won’t be easy to do, however. Right now the Grand Duchy is extremely short on grape pickers.