Soave hails vintage as a success despite ‘tricky year’

By Lisa Riley

Published: 23 November, 2018

Consorzio of Soave has hailed the 2018 vintage as a success predominantly thanks to the ‘Sentinels of Soave’.

In what the consortium described as a “tricky year”, in which demand and prices for grapes and wine increased, the regional body said “biodiversity had helped the region to triumph”.

Alongside the majority of wine regions across Europe, Soave experienced a challenging but also promising vintage this year, it said, with plentiful warmth alternated with frequent rain.

The fight against mildew contrasted with the tantalising prospect of a full, ripened crop, it added.

The‘Sentinels of Soave’ - a band of technical specialists that help the growers to cultivated grapes using an integrated system focused on biodiversity, had played a key part in the success of the 2018 vintage, said the consortium.

Positive about the quality of, and market, for Soave, Sandro Gini, president, Consorzio of Soave, said: “While the medium-term availability and production levels of Soave has fallen slightly, the price for grapes and wine has increased.

“Those who have worked well in the vineyard and selected carefully will have an impressively high quality, and a fair price as their reward.”

After the tiny yields 2017, the “potential generosity” of 2018 was widely considered to be positive by Soave’s growers and was a “natural response of the vine”, he added.

With the demand for high quality Soave increasing in all key markets, including the UK,

Consorzio of Soave said it will continue to support the UK with a campaign that aimed at highlighting the “great quality, character and value of contemporary Soave”.

Introduced in 2016, the ‘Sentinels of Soave’ management model incorporates many aspects of integrated viticulture, such as advanced monitoring and rapid response to signs of disease pressure, but adds a distinctively holistic approach that is concerned with all aspects of biodiversity, from bacteria, to bugs, to human well-being and environment.

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