2013 produced a record-breaking grape crop says Grape Growers chair

Thursday, January 16, 2014

by SUSAN MANN

Last year’s good growing season and plentiful rainfall has contributed to the 79,756 tonne record breaking 2013 grape crop, says Grape Growers of Ontario chair Bill George.

The crop, worth $99.7 million, is about 13,000 tonnes larger than the previous year’s crop of 66,014 tonnes with a farm gate value of $88.6 million.

Grape Growers reported the crop size at an event attended by Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne and Consumer Services Minister Tracy MacCharles in Toronto Wednesday.

In addition, more than 6,000 tonnes of grapes were netted in the fall and left to be harvested for ice wine production. Those grapes will produce 900,000 to 960,000 litres of ice wine, Grape Growers says in a press release.

George says 99 per cent of the grape crop was sold. “There might have been a few tonnes here and there unsold but for the most part I would consider the crop was all bought by the wineries this year.”

As for quality, it was good. George says he has been talking to wine makers and the wines “have been shaping up quite well in the tanks. White wines certainly are excellent this year and the red wines, as well, are shaping up quite nicely.”

Customers can look forward to some good wines this spring and fall, he says.

As for the ice wine grapes, the bulk of those have now been harvested. Ice wine grapes must be frozen on the vine at a sustained temperature of minus eight degrees Celsius or lower and pressed immediately. There’s a small amount of ice wine grapes that still needs to be harvested, George says. But “with the cold weather we’ve had around Christmas time and just after Christmas that lent itself to harvesting most of the ice wine grapes early in the season.”

George says the ice wine grape quality is also good. Those grapes need a good growing season similar to regular grapes and last year they got it. In addition, “we did have the optimum temperatures for picking ice wine (grapes) so I expect the quality of the ice wine to be very good this year.” BF