The León DO harvests almost three million kilos of very good quality grapes in a harvest affected by the rain

The Prieto Picudo variety, although with a significant drop, leads the production with 2,109,542 kilos, most of which will be used to make rosés, although it promises excellent long-aged reds.

The native white Albarín reaches a new record with 439,908 kilos in the 87.5 hectares of plantation, and the first 2,120 of the recovered Negro Saurí, which has the status of main red wine, are harvested.

The 2024 whites will be particularly aromatic, fresh and fruity; the rosés will also be more fragrant than last year’s and the reds will be very varietal, highly expressive and less alcoholic.

The facts:

• Start date: 7 September
• End date: 15 October
• Registered area: 1,216 hectares
• Production area: 545.38 hectares
• Number of plots: 856
• Number of registered winegrowers: 212
• Number of registered wineries: 38 (25 of them received grapes)

The harvest in numbers:

The León Designation of Origin concluded an eventful 2024 harvest – conditioned like that of 2023 by the continuous interruptions caused by rainfall – with the collection of almost three million kilos of grapes (2,829,211 compared to 3,017,904 in 2023). As in other wine-growing areas in the surrounding area, the initial forecast, which from flowering and veraison pointed to a figure similar to that of the previous year, was cut back and the harvest finally closed with 188,693 kilos less, although with a drop that was in any case much lower than in other nearby areas.

The abnormal weather conditions during the summer, with an unusually cold July and an extremely hot August, contributed to this reduction in production, which was also caused by the frost of 23 April, which mainly affected areas around Valderas, and to a greater extent by the hailstorm of 3 September, which on this occasion caused significant damage in the Valdevimbre area, where the greatest concentration of vineyards is recorded, with a loss of twenty to thirty percent. Finally, the rains recorded since the first day of the harvest not only hindered work in the fields and access to the vineyards, but also prevented the last kilos of grapes from being harvested, especially of the main variety Prieto Picudo, which was already badly damaged by botrytis.

The drop of almost 6% in production compared to the 2023 harvest slightly breaks the upward trend of the two previous campaigns, in both cases above three million kilos, after the plunge to just over 2.6 million in 2021 and the generalised falls that preceded it due to the negative effects of the health crisis and the difficulties in recovering the market in an economic scenario that today, although the circumstances and causes are quite different, is still adverse for consumption in general and for wine in particular.

In this context, with 2,109,542 kilos (2,326,007 in 2023), Prieto Picudo accounts for 74.56% of the volume of grapes processed, compared to 10,662 kilos of Mencía (0.38%, 31,783 in 2023), also the main variety for the production of rosés and reds, and 115,669 kilos of the complementary Tempranillo (4.09%, 81,238), which this year is growing slightly. The novelty of the vintage, after the Control Board amended the specifications to include it as the main variety, is the first, although still very limited harvest of Negro Saurí, with 2,120 kilos (0.07%) harvested by Melgarajo, the winegrowers’ society that has its vineyard in Melgar de Abajo (Valladolid). This grape variety, although with other synonyms in El Bierzo, Salamanca, Galicia and Northern Portugal, has always been present in the León DO and was included by Itacyl in the programme for the recovery of historic native varieties of the Castilla y León designations of origin. Among the reds, Garnacha is once again not registered as a grape variety, although it is now in disuse.

The good news is once again Albarín, with 439,909 kilos (15.55% of the total) compared to 347,451 in 2023, which is a new record, surpassing the 437,077 of 2022. Verdejo, on the other hand, fell by almost 123,000 kilos (5.14%, 145,450 compared to 224,945 in 2023) and Godello remained the same (0.21%, 5,860 kilos compared to 5,880 kilos in the previous vintage), both of which were also top wines.

The qualitative analysis of the 2024 vintage once again highlights the excellent quality of the grapes and their perfect sanitary condition, despite the fact that the rains interrupted the harvest from the first days and then repeatedly, especially in the last days of September and even in October, until the end of the campaign. The mechanisation of the process made it possible to do so according to weather forecasts and, fortunately, in the areas most sensitive to the consequences of the rain due to the creeping arrangement of the vines, the bunches were cut in the best conditions.

The grape maintains a magnificent skin-to-pulp ratio, with adequate ripeness despite these setbacks and very good general parameters. The winemakers are unanimous in highlighting the excellent aptitudes for making wines with the two main varieties, Albarín and Prieto Picudo, and above all they emphasise the enormous aromatic potential of the white grape, well above its usual high level. The white wines will be of high aromatic expression, fruity and fresh in the mouth due to the characteristics of the varieties, especially in the case of the Albarín, vigorously varietal, balanced and with excellent aptitudes, even for complex elaborations.

Prieto Picudo, essentially destined for making rosés (accounting for almost 70% of total production), will give wines of great varietal purity, extraordinarily fragrant and also with a very good balance between alcohol, again on this occasion more restrained, and the characteristic acidity that always brings freshness. The winemakers will once again face the challenge of taking advantage of the exceptional conditions of the fruit to make red wines that, with magnificent aptitudes for ageing, even long, will probably be reminiscent of the best vintages. They will be very racial wines, with all the strength and rusticity of a difficult grape such as Prieto Picudo, but with the pleasant finesse, silkiness and elegance that have been demonstrated in recent vintages.