German vineyards profit from dry and hot summer of 2018

German winegrowers benefitted from the hot and dry summer of 2018, producing 1.03 billion liters of wine and grape must, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) announced on Monday.

German wine production was almost 19 percent higher in 2018 compared with the six-year average from 2012 to 2017, according to Destatis.

German wine production amounted to around 1.4 billion bottles of wine in 2018, which was the largest annual quantity since 1999, the German statistical office noted.

Total wine production in Germany had risen by 38 percent compared with the previous year, the Destatis figures showed.

More than one-third of the wines from last year had reached the highest quality level and the German statistical office noted that 2003 was the last time a larger quantity of such high-quality wine was produced.

In 2018, significantly more white wine was produced than red wine, at 66 percent and 34 percent of the total quantity respectively, the German statistical office announced.

Germany's most important wine-growing region in terms of pure harvest volume was the southwest region of Rheinhessen, which accounted for 28 percent of Germany's total wine production in 2018.