PORTUGAL RECORDS ‘LOWEST WINE PRODUCTION OF THE LAST TWO DECADES’

LISBON (Reuters) – Wine output from Europe’s fifth-largest producer Portugal slumped by an estimated 20 percent this year to two-decade lows due to a heatwave in August and heavy rains that interrupted harvesting in October.

The National Statistics Institute said all the country’s wine-producing regions were likely to churn out just 5.2 million hectolitres, in a fall that contrasts with this year’s rise in global wine production to a five-year high.