This summer’s heat wave across Italy hasn’t just been a hundrance to summer travel but could wreak serious havoc with travelers hoping to be in Italy for this year’s wine harvest. The hot weather is forcing Italy’s earliest harvest in decades, and some say decades. “I haven’t heard of such an early harvest since the Council of Trent of 1563,” Marcello Lunelli of Cantine Ferrari told the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica. The hot, dry conditions caused the grapes to grow faster and vineyards are harvesting up to a month earlier than usual.
“It isn’t just the recent weather that is causing this change; Italy experienced record temps in winter and spring. The grapes started growing early, and they will be harvested early. The grapes don’t knowthe difference. The overall timeframe is the same,” says Alberto Coffele of the Veneto’s Azienda Agricole Coffele.
How might the quality and quantity of this year’s crop be affected by the heat and early harvest? We talk to the experts. Paid newsletter subscribers can read the rest of this article byclicking here
