Harvest Report 2026 Part I - Valdeorras
Harvest 2026 is underway in Galicia! Here are some pictures from Valdeorras.
The first two photos were sent to me by Rafael Palacios, who began harvesting on August 13, the earliest in Valdeorras along with Bodegas Valdesil. Although the timing of each vintage has been moving up for years now, growers usually start harvesting in September. The trend of the past two years has been a more extreme jump: the 2025 harvest kicked off on August 21, and this year is the earliest on record.
High temperatures throughout the summer sped up ripening, and some grapes were beginning to suffer from water stress after months of drought. At the end of August, the rain returned, and now the Valdeorras Regulatory Council forecasts a harvest at around 8.5 million kilos of grapes.