Every olive counts + Reviewing Ribera
Year 13, No. 17
That tell-tale sound of vibrating rakes has been fast and furious with everyone scrambling to get in what olive harvest there is to be found this year.
Ah, you thought that olive oil prices had gone up just on a whim? Well, maybe a little, but across Spain, olive production is down 34% from the average. So with a third less income (and keeping in mind that 2022 was actually worse), prices had to raise so that farmers can keep food on the table. Thus, given Spain being the #1 producer of olive oil in the world (nearly triple that of #2 Italy), there’s a knock-on effect of higher prices for the consumer.
The plus side of this is that due to price jump, I’ve noted that parcels which haven’t been touched for years in my region are suddenly getting cleaned up so the collection nets can go down. In years like this, every olive counts.
Bug questions linger however. If the harvest returns to normal-ish in 2024, so too will the prices? And what if production doesn’t rebound? Will this mean a lot less “Italian” Extra Virgin Olive Oil?
What we may currently lack in olives, we make up for in a bumper crop of reports on Hudin.com with both the report for Sparkling wines of Catalunya being released as well as the DO Ribera del Duero report with hundreds of wines reviewed and scored in each for paid subscribers.
As always, these reports are derived from on-the-ground research via time spent in the regions. The sparkling wine report was especially complicated as there are essentially four groups now in Catalunya and each one needed to be contacted in turn. The largest by far is DO Cava and tasting those wines gave rise to this essay (*) about the issues confronting that DO.
In addition to the reports, there’s also been a bumper crop of wine film reviews for the site due to me being a member of the jury for this year’s Most Festival in Catalunya. You can have a look at my personal selection of top films (*) from the judging experience.
There are also big things yet to come before the end of the year so stay tuned!
Drink well, be well.
-Miquel
(*) Free to read