The 2022 Swiss vintage is excellent – and there’s a lot of it

The year 2022 is an excellent year for Swiss wine. The harvest volume increased by 63 percent compared to 2021. The 99 million liters should also taste particularly good thanks to low rainfall and high temperatures.

The weather drove the sugar content in the grapes above average, the Federal Bureau of Agriculture (FOAG) announced on Thursday. Compared to last year, winegrowers produced 33 million liters more wine.

However, the 2021 grape harvest was the lowest since 1957: frozen by spring frosts, washed away by rain, greeted with hail and ravaged by mildew. The recovery in 2022 differed regionally.

The vineyards of German-speaking Switzerland produced 16 million liters of wine, 94 percent more than in 2021. In Western Switzerland, the harvest was 78 million liters, an increase of 63 percent. In Italian-speaking Switzerland, the increase was less than 8 percent to 5 million litres. On a ten-year average, the 2022 grape harvest grew by 10 percent or 9 million litres.

Viticulture benefited from heat and drought in 2022, as the FOAG explained the growth. Such weather conditions are beneficial both for the ripening of the vines and against diseases. At the end of June, the first symptoms of the disease appeared, but they were brought under control. As a result, fewer pesticides were needed.

In terms of weather, there was practically no spring frost and hail in 2022. This promotes the flowering and optimal development of the grapes. Even as the drought put pressure on the vines, irrigation kept losses down. The rainfall in August then allowed the grapes to grow in volume, which, according to FOAG, not only benefited quality but also quantity.

The area under vines shrank by 20 to 14,609 hectares nationwide in 2022. That is a decrease of 0.1 percent. (sda)