Grape production reached a record level in 13 years

This year Azerbaijan produced 147,300 tons of grapes. This is 12 thousand tons, or 9.1% more than on 1 December 2011. With the increase in the vineyards since 2004 nearly twice, the amount of the crop reached a record level in 1998.

According to the committee, at the beginning of this year, vineyards occupied 15,900 hectares of land. After the anti-alcohol campaign, which began in the period of perestroika in 1985, the subsequent land reform in 1996-1998, when the ground state and collective farms were distributed to the population, as well as the crisis period of viticulture, which lasted until 2003, the area of land under vines fell from 133,100 hectares (1993) to 7,700 (2003).

Today, wine is one of the profitable areas of agricultural production, which is invested mainly by representatives of the oligarchy. Vineyards over large areas are owned by Ltd. Gilan Holding (family of the Emergency Situations Minister Kamaladdin Heydarov) and LLC Vinqaro (head of the Personal Protection Service of the President Beylar Eyyubov).

In the planting of new vineyards they use not only local, but also highly technical French and Italian varieties. Therefore, in 2011 the yield from 1 ha reached the highest rate - 81 hundredweight or 2 times more than in 2004. This is same as in the distant 1985. True, then the data were exaggerated to an extent. - 08B-