Record yield, low price in Hungarian wine sector
The weather has created a special situation in the grape production nationwide this spring. At the end of March, snowfalls made the work harder in the vineyards, and three weeks afterwards the still lasting warm weather started. As a result of this, instead of the usual August harvest, the harvest of the traditionally first, fragrant breed of the ‘Csabagyöngye’ was begun around 15 July.
Record yields were harvested throughout the country, exceeding 10-15% higher than usual yields in recent years. As a result, in 2018 about 3-3.2 million hectoliters of wine were produced in Hungary. Despite the good quality of the Hungarian wine, due to the over-supply resulting from the outstanding yield, a small portion of the produced volume could not be sold on the market.
The interbranch organization of the Hungarian wine-growers - The National Council of Wine Communities - , gave a preliminary estimation of market prices of certain vine varieties based on the data reported by wine-growers. The estimate served as a guide for producers to apply the appropriate market price. The interbranch organization emphasized that the actual trend in wine grape prices also depends on wine market demand. In order to ensure that grape prices are fair to farmers - despite the constantly increasing production costs - it is essential to increase the commercial price of wines. However, this would require the cooperation of vine-growers, which is very low in the Hungarian agriculture in general, but within the wine sector even lower than in other sectors.
Marketable and sustainable grape and wine production can only be achieved if the wine price not only covers the costs of cultivation and the amortization of plantations, but it also generates a good income for the producer while stays still manageable for the wineries as well. To achieve this, it is essential to modernize and mechanize work processes as high as possible.