The 2013 wine harvest, marked by climatic conditions, has finished with a collected production of 99,828,394 Kg, a new production record for DO Rueda.
Having done the wine harvest and verified by the Technical Services all the grape realized entrances and deducted the disqualifications, the grape production entitled to a Rueda Origin Denomination in 2013 has reached 99,828,394 Kg of the 98,034,160 Kg (98.20%) white grapes, and 83,397,420 Kg of which are from the Verdejo native variety (83.54% of the whole production).
The 2013 wine harvest has been one of the most delayed of DO Rueda history. It began on 18th September, with the Sauvignon Blanc variety harvest and afterwards the rest of Verdejo, Viura and Palomino white varieties.
This wine harvest is characterized not only by the delay at the beginning but also by the important rainfalls occurred during it (registering someday 60-70L/m2), which an important increase in the production and obliged to paralyze the wine harvest facing the machine impossibility to enter in the vineyards before the berth problems and the possibility of sinking in the lands and later to accelerate the grape harvest, harvesting some days 7.5 million kg.
The rainfalls which happened the 25 and 28 September permitted to recuperate production in some vineyards. However a lot of irregularities appeared in the plot performances, so that some Origin Denomination vineyards have encountered production losses from up to 40-50% regarding previous years, especially these vineyards which lacked irrigation help and situated on poor plots. On the contrary, some vineyards in phase of production entrance or which had beneficiated watering help have maintained and increased the production with respect to previous years. The wine harvest finished on 28th October with the last Cabernet-Sauvignon variety entrance.
Other rain effect was the constant vigilance by the wine cellars and the vine growers of the vineyards and in particular times they had to select bunches and manual wine harvest in trellis before passing the machines to eliminate these bunches that could be affected by botrytis caused by the rainfalls and thereby to not harm the rest of the production. For this rest, the work of Regulatory Council technical and inspectors that watched over in order to enter the grape in the wine cellar in excellent salubriousness conditions and to guarantee this control, 50 inspectors have been hired to look after the norms performance established by the C.R.D.O Rueda. In the 2013 wine harvest, the registered surface was 12,942.62 hectares, 94.67% of which corresponded to white grape varieties with 12,252.38 hectares. The main and native variety of D.O. Rueda, the Verdejo, represents clearly the majority and reaches 10,408.95 hectares, 90% of which are brought by trellis and susceptible to be wine harvests with machines. In this field, the vineyard surface has increased by 88.74 hectares, reaching a new historical maximum which, together with the plantations of the previous 5 years – at the rate of a thousand hectares per year – explain the production increase.
In this 2013 field, 1,555 vine growers were registered in D.O. Rueda and four new wine cellars were incorporated to the wine elaboration: Viñedos Verderubí S.L. (Rubí de Bracamonte), Agrícola Sanz, S.L. (Rueda), Explotaciones Agrícolas Páramo de Valdecuevas, S.L.D (Rueda), Soc. Coop. Valdechimoza (La Seca), making that there are 55 elaborated wine cellars of the 62 total registered in D.O. Rueda.
The total collected production by varieties has been:
TOTAL 2013 WINE HARVEST RECEPTION: 99,828,394 kg
- Verdejo: 83,397,420
- Viura: 8,646,918
- Sauvignon Blanc: 5,540,464
- Palomino: 449,358
- Tempranillo: 1,529,293
- Cabernet Sauvignon: 196,376
- Merlot: 60,865
- Garnacha: 7,70
