Uva de Mesa Vinalopo

Spanish table grape Denomination of Origin (DO) organisation Uva de Mesa Embolsada Vinalopó is expecting to market one of its “best quality crops of recent years”, with the group confident of expanding exports to a greater number of countries.

In a crop update released this week, the group, which draws its production from Valencia’s Vinalopó Valley, said that it was likely to have some 1,500 tonnes of grapes available to meet demand in the Spanish domestic market.

The confident prediction comes in spite of heavy rains falling in Valencia region during the past week, which the DO said had not affected the development of the crop.

“The rains have not damaged the crop,” said the DO’s president, José Bernabeu. “The danger would have been if they had lasted for a few more days because then the humidity could have affected the grapes.”

Bernabeu said the organisation was also aiming to export greater volumes of Vinalopó table grapes to European markets, particularly to those countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and the Netherlands, where “demand is growing”.

Uva de Mesa Embolsada Vinalopó is just one of many Spanish grape producing groups to benefit from the long-established Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes to mark the countdown to every New Year.