With the information obtained from two grape ripening controls, DO Utiel-Requena’s Regulating Council has published the first qualitative and quantitative balance on the evolution of the 2008 harvest. The comparative balance between both, carried out with a week’s difference, has allowed the regulating body to control the vineyard’s good sanitary condition, to discern that the harvest will suffer a slight delay, and to predict that volumes will be between 20 to 30 percent less than those obtained in 2007.

More precisely, the harvest shows a slightly delayed evolution in comparison to 2007, both at an alcoholic (sugars) and phenological (grape colour) level, owing, to a great extent, to the meteorological cycle of this DO Utiel-Requena region; a rainy spring and a mild summer. However, in the space of a week, favourable ripening evolution has been noted in quite a uniform way over the whole production area, which is also displaying adequate parameters for the time of year.

As regards quantity, although it is still too early to make predictions, the first estimates point to less volume then 2007, a year which produced a figure of 214 million kilos, a total far superior to an average campaign from this region. For 2008, the experts predict a fall of between 20 to 30 percent with regards to last year.

Regulating Council technicians carry out regular controls in order to monitor the state of the grapes in 39 fixed distribution points spread over the Utiel-Requena region, a total of 40,000 hectares of vineyard.