My Vineyard Blog August 2013

Revival of Agriculture

How many people know that Portugal is the fourth largest producer of tomatoes in the world? If you open a can of tomatoes or pour tomato ketchup on your food you will have almost certainly eaten wonderfully ripe tomatoes from Portugal. Only the USA, China and Italy produce more. Portugal’s agriculture is undergoing a timely revival, helped (ironically) by the financial crisis. Land that was as good as abandoned five years ago is suddenly coming into production again and Portugal is moving much closer to national self- sufficiency in many areas.

A Late Harvest?

Despite (or perhaps because of) the recent blast of heat we are heading for a late harvest this year. The pintor has only just arrived this week, a good two weeks later than normal. The pintor or painter is the local name for veraison when the grapes change colour. Last year the pintor arrived at the end of July, in 2011 it was 15th July and in 2010 it was 22nd July.  On the basis it is usually 55 days from the arrival of the pintor to the harvest, we will not be picking until late September.