Author: Sharon Nagel
The Northern Hemisphere is harvesting an exceptionally early crop but heat, drought and compressed picking windows have made production unusually challenging to predict – leaving the bulk wine market reluctant to make the first move.
It’s an extraordinary irony that, in a year when vineyards across the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing one of the earliest, if not the earliest harvest on record, forecasts have been unforthcoming this year. The major trade and government bodies that traditionally publish their first estimates in late July or early August have delayed their announcements. Officially, the reason has been the rapidly changing weather conditions, which have made it unusually difficult to assess how severely heat and drought will ultimately affect volumes. But it isn’t hard to read another consideration into these delays – the desire not to add further pressure to an already fragile market.
France: heat, drought and a shrinking vineyard
The French authorities made the unprecedented decision this year not to publish their customary harvest forecast at the beginning of August, waiting instead another month. On September 7, Agreste issued its preliminary report which points to a crop below 34 million hectolitres. Although the estimate will need to be confirmed over the coming weeks, it already indicates a 6% drop on last year and a 17% fall on the 2021-2025 average. The decline looks even starker considering that the five-year average includes three small harvests – 2021, 2024 and 2025. Summer weather had a profound impact on volumes, with drought and successive heatwaves causing sunburn and scorching, defoliation and grape shrivelling. Though water reserves had been significantly replenished over the winter and the spring and vineyards began the season with low disease pressure, the following months proved challenging.
Vineyard removals also took their toll: Agreste estimates that bearing acreage across France shrank by 2.5% over a twelve-month period. In both cases, there are strong regional variations. Counterintuitively, the southern part of the country fared better than the north: Languedoc-Roussillon is so far expecting volumes to increase by 5% and south-east France by 2% on last year, while Champagne predicts a 48% shortfall, Burgundy-Beaujolais is due to fall by 33% and the Loire Valley by 12%. Despite vineyard removals totalling nearly 5,000 hectares, Bordeaux is currently witnessing a 10% increase in volumes this year and South-West France has announced a marginal 2% decline.
Spain: waiting on Airen
Although the rate of grubbing-up has not been replicated in the other major European wine producing countries, Spain and Italy are not expecting large crops either. In Spain, the Castilla-La Mancha trade organisation has initially estimated that the 2026 harvest will likely be similar to 2025, at 33 million hectolitres, and will probably not exceed 34 mhl. After a month or so of harvesting, Spain’s largest wine region itself witnessed a shorter crop for early-ripening varieties, prompting it to predict volumes in the range of 19 mhl, on a par with 2025. Yet the all-important Airen harvest has only just begun, and that could still reshape the national production picture.
Climate change and a challenging market have combined to keep production structurally lower, not just this year but in previous vintages, so that Spain’s inventories are in line with last year’s at 30 million hectolitres – a level considered to be manageable. Bumper crops are unlikely to occur again, claims Spanish wine broker, David Martin, at Ciatti:
“I don’t think we’re going to revert back to the high-volume harvests we used to see, around the 42-43-million mark. I think we’re going back to normality, which is somewhere between 33 and 36 or 38 million hectolitres, depending on the season”.
Italy: when every week costs volume
Italy has adopted a similarly cautious approach. Its annual harvest briefing, which is traditionally held in early September, was postponed this year. “We don’t have any numbers”, explains Federico Repetto at brokerage agency Vini Repetto in Verona. “But the crop should be more or less similar to last year. No-one wants to give any numbers because with the kind of temperatures we’re seeing, every week we lose volumes”. Aside from localised climate issues such as hail, water, or the lack of it, is the defining factor this year: modern, irrigated vineyards such as those for Prosecco, are clearly outperforming older hillside vineyards without irrigation. It’s not just a yield issue – with temperatures frequently hitting the upper 30-degree mark, alcohol levels have risen sharply. “Where vineyards don’t have irrigation, you can expect to find high alcohol content compared with a normal harvest”, adds Repetto.
If there is one theme uniting wine regions across the northern hemisphere, it is the unprecedented pace of the harvest. “The growing season is in a massive hurry, and it is not waiting for buyers to catch up or find certainty in their sales and supply projections”, said California brokerage Turrentine in its latest newsletter. “Across California, the vines are running well ahead of the calendar”. Turrentine also notes that “the 2026 vintage is shaping up to deliver a lighter crop on a per-acre basis” due to widespread shatter and heat that have affected several varieties and appellations. There are also potential smoke impacts in Sonoma County though disease pressure has been alleviated by warmer weather later in the summer.
Uncertainty shapes the bulk wine market
Back in Europe, Portugal is bucking the general trend. The country is forecasting a 12% increase to 6.7 million hectolitres – one of the few sizeable production gains among major northern hemisphere producers. Despite the year-on-year growth, however, volumes would still be 4% lower than the five-year average. Four regions are forecasting double-digit increases on 2025: the Douro (+25%), Alentejo (+15%), Setubal Peninsula (+15%) and Tras-os-Montes (+15%), which are expecting to produce a combined increase of around half a million hectolitres compared with last year. In Germany, by contrast, prolonged summer heat is expected to reduce output despite an exceptionally early harvest. Harvesting is now in full swing with a majority of grape varieties likely to ripen simultaneously.
Overall, the 2026 vintage is shaping up to be defined less by quality than by timing and volume. Across much of the Northern Hemisphere, growers are reporting healthy fruit, concentrated berries and strong quality potential. Yet the combination of an exceptionally early harvest and persistent heat has made yields unusually difficult to quantify until the last grapes reach the winery. That uncertainty is already shaping behaviour in the bulk wine market. “Nobody’s making a move. Nobody’s in a rush. Everybody’s loading wine. Everybody has some wine in the cellar they can sell over the next few weeks. So nobody wants to make a mistake”, concludes David Martin.
About Sharon Nagel
British-born Sharon Nagel has been a journalist and translator specialising in wine for 35 years. She writes for leading French online publication Vitisphere and also contributes to corporate communications.
