Wine grape harvest 2018 in Ktima Pavlidis begun on August 3 from our family owned vineyard at Kokkinogia and Sauvignon blanc. The 2018 harvest season started earlier than it ever has in Ktima Pavlidis. This is an especially challenging year, both for our agronomist Yannis Chronis and our winemaker Panagiotis Kyriakidis.
As expected, rain and low temperature at the flowering stage in the area of Drama resulted in a slight reduction of the production, this will contribute though to enhance the quality and the aromatic complexity of the grapes.
At the same time, summer rain replenished soil water storage, vines met their needs in water and thus no further irrigation deemed necessary.
Thanks to our regular visits to the vineyards we treated promptly any infection with multiple and substantial interventions, like leaf canopy management and shoot topping, which will benefit vine physiology.
Finally, the night harvest, the large day-night difference of temperature that sometimes can reach up to 15C (59F), transporting the grapes with a refrigeration truck and placing them in a refrigerating room for 8 hours highly contributes to the minimum spoilage of the grapes.
The important work done again this year in our family owned vineyards of 60 ha (148 acres) rewards us with a really good year for white varieties, with fruity aromas and relatively high acidity, and for red varieties with soft tannins.
According to the latest information we consider harvest 2018 to be completed by the end of September. As in previous years, THEMA white and THEMA rosé will be the first wines of the new 2018 vintage, planned to be released in the middle of November.
