The biggest of the Jerez cooperatives, Nuestra Senora de las
Angustias, known generally as the Jerez Cooperative, has begun harvesting in
earnest. Between its 200 members the coop owns some 800 hectares of vineyard,
making it the biggest vineyard owner in the region, followed by Grupo Estevez
with about 750 hectares. From their 800 hectares the coop predicts a yield of between
6 and 7 million kilos of grapes, or about 7,000 kilos per hectare.
This year’s yield is well down on last year since only about
300 litres of rain per square metre fell – less than half the average – where a
normal year would have produced a yield of about 10,000 kilos per hectare.
Nonetheless, the coop is expecting 200 lorries a day discharging 700,000 – 800,000
kilos of grapes into the presses, until the end of the harvest next Thursday or
Friday.
This year about 40% of the harvest will be picked by machine,
though most of the mechanical picking is done by the vineyard-owning bodegas,
rather than small growers whose holdings average some 3 hectares each. The
quality is very good, very healthy, but the quantity is down due to smaller
grapes.
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