Italy's Grape Harvest Starts 10 Days Early as Growers Race Record Heat

Grape pickers in northern Italy started clipping bunches before sunrise this week, working under floodlights to beat heat that regional labor rules say is too dangerous for midday work.

At Berlucchi, the oldest producer in Italy's Franciacorta sparkling wine region, harvest began Aug. 2, roughly 10 days earlier than last year, according to the Associated Press. Temperatures have hit 37 to 38 degrees Celsius, 99 to 100 Fahrenheit, for weeks, combined with below-average rainfall.

Berlucchi CEO Arturo Ziliani told the AP his family's operation, which his father Franco founded in 1961 as Italy's first classic-method sparkling wine producer, did not see this coming. "We did not expect such an early harvest or such an acceleration in ripening," Ziliani said.

The company had targeted an Aug. 10 start as recently as late July. Then sugar levels in the Pinot Nero grapes spiked fast. Workers were called in within two days.

Heat forces a schedule nobody wanted

Regional labor rules bar outdoor work between 12:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. in extreme heat. Berlucchi's technical director, oenologist Ferdinando Dell'aquila, told the AP the afternoon shift became untenable, so the company moved picking to 4 a.m.

"The grapes are perfectly healthy," Dell'aquila said. "We just have to work as quickly as possible, harvest them and preserve their acidity."

Farther west, in Lombardy's Oltrepò Pavese region, the harvest started even earlier. Matteo Castellani, head of the Coldiretti farming union chapter for Casteggio, told AFP that picking began July 27 and 28, weeks ahead of the usual Aug. 10-15 window. "This year is historic because the grapes have never been harvested in July before," Castellani said, according to AFP coverage carried by RTÉ and The Star.

Winemaker Federico De Filippi, three days into his own harvest at the Defilippi estate, said maturation was "perfect" and alcohol content "optimal" as of late July. But he warned continued heat could push sugar and alcohol levels higher, forcing an even faster pick.

Not just Italy, and not just sparkling wine

Coldiretti, Italy's largest farmers' association, said the 2026 harvest could stretch across nearly five months given how staggered the ripening has become region by region, according to Vinetur and WineNews.it. Sicily and parts of Tuscany started picking still-wine grapes in late July. Coldiretti forecasts Sangiovese, Italy's most widely planted grape, could be harvested as early as mid-August in Tuscany, well ahead of its typical September-to-November window.

The same pattern is showing up across the border. In southern France's Aude region, winegrower Alain Gleyzes started harvesting Muscat grapes at night on July 30 for sparkling wine, telling AFP it was the first time in his 43-year career he'd picked in July. Near Narbonne, sisters Camille and Audrey Lalaurie, tenth-generation growers, moved their start date up from a historical norm of Aug. 25 two decades ago to the first weekend of August this year.

Good news and bad news in the same vineyard

Coldiretti's analysis lays out the tension growers are navigating. Heat is speeding up sugar accumulation, which can be good for quality if managed well, but drought is the bigger unknown for total yield. The group said quality prospects look strong in many regions so far, and downy mildew risk, a common vineyard disease tied to wet conditions, is currently considered low.

But hail has already caused serious damage in scattered vineyards from northern to central Italy this season, according to Coldiretti's reporting via Vinetur. Gleyzes in France said drought forced him to uproot roughly a third of his more than 60 hectares in 2025 after two straight years of arid conditions near the Mediterranean coast, wilting about 30% of his vines.

For producers this year, the same heat wave that's ripening grapes to near-perfect sugar and acid balance is also threatening to shrink how much fruit there is to pick. Coldiretti says the final volumes remain uncertain given how compressed and unpredictable the picking window has become. Winemakers in both countries are making harvest-timing calls now, sometimes within 48 hours of a sugar-level reading, that will determine whether 2026 turns out to be a strong vintage or a smaller one.