On Friday, the Interprofessional Council of the Institute of Douro and Port Wines (IVDP) announced the conversion of 75,000 casks of must into Port wine this harvest, 15,000 fewer than in 2024.
The allowance of 75,000 casks (550 liters each) of must for the production of Port wine was the main outcome of the harvest statement approved by the IVDP’s interprofessional council, which met on Friday in Peso da Régua, Vila Real district. Last year, the quantity was set at 90,000 casks.
In response to the announcement, the National Confederation of Agriculture (CNA) believes that, especially for small and medium-sized winegrowers, this reduction “means another blow to their incomes, pushing many producers’ desperate situation beyond bearable limits”.
In this context, the statement confirms “the need, not only for urgent support, but also for structural measures to be taken in the RDD, as winegrowers have demanded and will continue to demand, from the IVDP, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the prime minister”.
“This cut urgently requires immediate measures to compensate producers for lost income this harvest, particularly targeting small and medium-sized winegrowers, in an unbureaucratic way and with sufficient allocations,” the press release adds.
Emphasizing that the winegrowers “flatly reject vineyard removal,” the CNA considers that “this is more of the same: pushing small and medium-sized winegrowers towards abandonment, further depopulating and impoverishing the region, stripping it of character, and putting its high economic, social, and cultural value at risk”.
The CNA and AVADouriense reaffirm their rejection of this cut that affects approximately 20,000 winegrowers in the region and which, they denounce, occurs “after major operators in the region have sent letters to winegrowers warning that they will not accept their grapes, in a context where the unfair practice continues, leading many winegrowers to deliver grapes without knowing their payment, when the situation of many wineries is dire with a lack of storage capacity and during a campaign with increased production costs”.
The confederation warns that the situation “highlights the disastrous result of policies that continue to favor market power imbalances in the RDD among production, transformation, and trade, always to the detriment of producers, benefiting the concentration of land and production in the hands of major marketing and exporting houses”.
“It is this same policy that allows winegrowers to continue to receive the same price for their grapes as 25 years ago, while production costs have skyrocketed,” they further accuse.
The statement concludes with the CNA and AVADouriense reaffirming their commitment to Douro winegrowers, demanding a way out of the crisis, fair grape outlet prices, dignified incomes, a living and future region, and threatening to take “necessary initiatives to continue this fair fight”.
