Nemea winemakers taking stock of fire damage to vines
As the last embers died out from a wildfire that ripped through one of Greece’s most valuable wine regions last week, the grape-growers and winemakers of Nemea in the northern Peloponnese starting take stock of the damage to the crop over the weekend, before state officials prepare to visit the area this week to begin a formal assessment.
“The winery and the people are okay, but a lot of hectares have been burned; we just don’t know exactly how many yet,” the head of marketing at Semeli, Maria Panagiotopoulou, tells Kathimerini.
Dimitris Skouras from Domaine Skouras is also counting his losses, adding that “a lot of the vines which didn’t burn have suffered from thermal shock.”
At Gaia, winemaker Yiannis Paraskevopoulos estimates that at least 2 hectares planted with Mavrodafni, Agiorgitiko and Assyrtiko grapes are gone.
“The destruction would have been biblical if the Fire Service hadn’t responded so quickly,” he says, adding that last summer’s high temperatures had also wiped out much of Nemea’s output. “The grapes withered on the vine before they could ripen. How can you make wine with that?”
Last week’s fire, confirms the president of the Nemea Winemakers’ Association, Giorgos Vlachos, was the “cherry on the cake” of the damage climate change is wreaking in the region.
“It just keeps getting worse every year,” agrees Evangelia Palivou from the estate of the same name. “We have 100% first-hand experience of what climate change means over here.”
Apart from affecting the region’s wine output, the combination of protracted drought, high temperatures and big wildfires has also affected Nemea’s premium raisin and sultana crop, as well as the region’s olive oil output, according to Nemea Mayor Konstantinos Frousios, who has petitioned the government for help since last year.
