14:26It should have been a great year for Spanish wine: a bumper crop of grapes resulting in millions and millions of extra bottles for sipping or swilling at home and abroad. But with Covid-19 leading to a catastrophic drop in wine sales, the Spanish government is offering growers subsidies to destroy part of this year’s record grape harvest. Faced with over-production in a shrinking market, €90m is to be spent either on destruction or on the distilling of grapes into brandy and industrial alcohol. This year’s grape harvest is expected to produce 43 million hectolitres of wine, compared with 37 million in recent years. Even without Covid, this exceeds the combined domestic and international demand of 31 million hectolitres, but, to make matters worse, restaurant sales have fallen by 65% and exports by 49% since the start of the pandemic.

Source: The Guardian August 14, 2020 23:29 UTC