Disappointing year for Belgian wine

Rain, more rain and mildew are the main causes of Belgium’s poor grape harvest this year, winegrowers have warned.

As growers in vineyards start the harvest a little later because of the bad weather, Vincent de Busscher, who founded, with Laurianne Lejour, the 1.5 hectare vineyard Domaine Mont des Anges in Havay, near Mons, described the 2024 vintage as disappointing.

“It’s a low quantity year, because it rained for six months non-stop," he said. "So the rhythm of the vines was delayed. I think we have about a third of last year’s harvest and half that of 2022.”

Mildew is a major reason for the poor harvest. Caused by humidity, mildew attacks vines, causing brown spots on the leaves before damaging the harvest.

Wine specialist John Leroy, part of the team at the Les Agaises vineyard in Haulchin, between Binche and Mons, said the “capricious weather” had caused arguably “the worst year we’ve had in 20 years”.

“It got off to a difficult start with the spring frosts,” Leroy told RTBF.

“Our anti-freeze towers protected the lower part of the vines, but unfortunately the frosts also spread to the upper half.

"So we had some damage, which I think was limited to around 30% of the crop. After that, the rest of the year was complicated, with a lot of humidity."

The vines were also affected by a cold spell during the June flowering season. This resulted in the flowers not being fertilised, or being fertilised badly, leading to under-developed or unfertilised grapes that were not suited or were very unprofitable for wine production.

Notwithstanding the poor quantity, Leroy is confident that Les Agaises's sparkling wine – called Ruffus after Seigneur Ruffus, who lived in the area in the 12th century – will be good quality.

“It’s a more ‘old-fashioned’ 2024 vintage,” Leroy added. “With the very cool temperatures, the grapes will take much longer to ripen and acidity levels will not decrease, so we’ll be able to get some very good degrees [of alcohol]. The result will be vintages that age very well, with better pH and good acidity levels.”

However, the wine expert admitted that given the difficult weather conditions, late harvest and smaller grape yield, there would likely be a slight price increase for Ruffus wine.

“But it’s not because we’re having a bad year that we’re going to double it,” he said, adding that inflation had already enforced a price hike.