Heatwave and drought have forced Zadar's winemakers into the earliest harvest in history. The yield is good and parameters are excellent, but extreme heat is driving urgent picking, especially in rocky vineyards.
It sounds incredible, but the grape harvest in the Zadar area has already begun. It's not even mid-August, and winemakers in Ravni Kotari are already in the vineyards. The direct cause is the heatwave that has "boiled" the atmosphere and forced the grapes to ripen at an accelerated pace. Winemakers are literally saving a crop that is good this year, but it is threatened by unbearable heat that has started to burn the leaves, especially in vineyards located in the karst where insolation is intense, and the long dry spell is not helping.
Radoslav Bobanović, a winemaker from Tinj and Polača, started intensive harvesting of white varieties Pošip and Chardonnay, as well as red varieties Syrah, Merlot, and Crljenak on Monday. "This temperature 'cooking' without wind is simply driving us to harvest. The vineyards are healthy, the yield is good, but the sun is 'killing' us, so we were forced to start the harvest earlier than usual," Bobanović describes the situation on the ground.
Although the current parameters are ideal, the harvest has started 10 to 15 days earlier than it should. Bobanović points out that the high temperatures and "cooking" have simply imposed the only solution. "The weather will apparently continue like this, so we have no choice but to pick, especially for those of us with vineyards in the stone. Nadin is not yet as exposed, but it's not far off. And those of us in the stone, we simply have to," explains the winemaker.
Interestingly, even the indigenous Plavina variety is raising its sugar levels, which is not typical for this period. These are all shocks that winemakers must deal with by harvesting earlier, and exclusively in the morning, because work during the day is impossible. This further increases production costs. Bobanović, however, sees a glimmer of hope in modern technology: "It's good that wineries now have modern cold storage, so quality preparation for wine can be done in these conditions." However, all these problems mean additional investments, which could reflect on price increases and the competitiveness of domestic wines compared to imports, a constant problem for Croatian winemakers.
Zvonimir Vlatković, a viticulture expert, confirms that this will be a demanding year for all winemakers due to droughts and heatwaves. While touring the field, he also visited the vineyards of Božo Bačić in Podgrađe near Benkovac, who has also started an earlier harvest, despite having an irrigation system. However, Bačić has additional headaches from wild boars that broke through the fence and, in search of water, damaged the irrigation system. For the same reason, birds are increasingly damaging the crop in the vineyards.
Vlatković notes that the situation in Nadin is somewhat better because significant rain fell there, so there is no need for extraordinary measures for now. "But for vineyards in the karst, the situation is truly alarming, and local winemakers have decided to save the crop with an earlier harvest. It's good that the parameters are favorable and the year is fruitful, but it will be a demanding harvest, never earlier in the Zadar area," concludes Vlatković.
The heatwave has thus surprised many, especially winemakers who must save the crop so it doesn't "cook" on the vine.
