The development of Greek grape acreage varies depending on the region, one of which is seeing a significant reduction, says Dimitrios Spanos, Director of grape breeder Grape Evolution: "The last few years the development of acreage in the three main table grape regions hasn't been the same. For instance in Corinthia, there was a significant reduction of table grape farms, of over 35%. The main reason for this reduction is the lack of irrigation water. For the second region, Kavala, acreage has been steady. The majority of Thompson seedless has been replaced with new late season varieties. Finally, in Crete, the situation has also been steady, with a large portion of Thompson seedless having been replaced with new early varieties."
Prime grapes
Overall the Greek grape growers haven't had it easy, with major losses due to weather conditions in the past, Spanos explains. "Climate change has resulted in significant losses over the last years. The government in Greece had to support part of the losses, with hectare contributions for the loss of income for grape growers. In 2022, summer rains destroyed a large portion of grapes in the south of Greece. In 2023, extreme heat waves during the summer in combination with hail storms in the early autumn had a similar result. On top of that, we need to add the yearly decrease of water availability in Corinthia. A large portion of the farms can't find sufficient water to irrigate during the last months of the summer, when we've faced intensive heat waves, lasting for more than two weeks at a time. As a result, in many cases these farmers are losing not only the annual crop, but even the vines."
Looking at the current season, the warm winter weather had an impact on the mid and late varieties, Spanos states: "Early varieties are steady in terms of volumes, or slightly under comparing to last year. Mid-season varieties have been affected by the warm winter and had very poor bud breaking, similar to other south European countries. There's also been limited fertility, so the volumes are significantly down compared to last year. Late varieties have been affected by the warm winter as well, but not on the same level as the mid-season varieties."
Exotic Pearl grapes
Looking forward, Spanos is very excited about their newest black seedless variety. "My expectation is that Greece will focus on two timing periods of grape production. The early period, production during mid-June to end of July and the late period from October to November. Grape evolution provides 100% of the early varieties to the Greek growers that includes Prime, Star Light, Desert Pearl and early Pearl. On the late side, this year we are going to have 40 farms producing our latest white grape variety the Late Pearl, which we are very proud of, for the excellent quality, crispiness and productivity. Worth to be mentioned is that our Early pearl is the earliest black seedless variety in the world and our growers in Egypt enjoyed huge success with strong demand and prices over UK and EU this year. All varieties of Grape Evolution are developed together with the breeding programme of Volcani Instite [ARO) "
Early Pearl grapes
"Following the huge commercial success and demand this year for the earliest black seedless variety the Early Pearl, out of Egypt, we have a new and fresh red seedless variety, which comes early and brings unique characteristics. The first commercial quantities of Exotic Pearl will be moved into UK and Germany's red seedless speciality lines to the top end retailers, from Egypt. It's a new early and super tasteful red seedless variety, which can be an ideal replacement for the Flame seedless grapes. This year's grapes have been packed by Agrostar, Ragab Farms and Future Agrico Co in Egypt," Spanos concludes.
For more information:
Dimitrios Spanos
Grape Evolution
Tel: +30 694 615 6969
Email: [email protected]
www.grapeevolution.com