Wine Industry Predicting 'Miracle' Harvest
Wine Industry Predicting 'Miracle' Harvest
Nov 7, 2011 6
(OPBNews) - Oregon's wine industry is using words like "miracle" to describe this year's grape harvest. That's quite a change from a month ago, when experts worried that the wet, chilly summer could spell trouble for Oregon's two and a $500 million wine industry.
A spell of mild and sunny weather and some smart farming are credited with turning the harvest around. Growers say the cool summer made the grapes develop much more slowly than usual, and caused a really late harvest that's just now finishing. But Charles Humble with the Oregon Wine Board says this year is poised to break the harvest record set in 2009 of more than 40-thousand tons.
"We think we will at least slightly succeed that. So, the harvest this year should come in somewhere between 41-thousand and 45-thousand tons. That'll easily surpass last year, which was about 31,000 tons – but that was down about 22 percent from the previous year," Humble said.
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