The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) has communicated an authorization for the cultivation of new vineyard areas for the year 2023. The notification specifies that the authorized areas for new vineyard plantations add up to a total of 1,407 hectares throughout the country.
The ministry has carried out a detailed evaluation of all the applications received from the autonomous communities, ordering and scoring them before issuing the relevant authorizations. Said authorizations will be distributed into six priority groups, which will add up to 90% of the admissible area in Spain.
MAPA has guaranteed that young farmers and those with small and medium-sized farms will receive the full eligible area they applied for, with a limit of 5 hectares per applicant. Additionally, winegrowers with legal vineyards and no signs of abandonment that have complied with the commitments of the authorization regime will be granted 62% of the admissible area requested.
Of the authorized area, 84% corresponds to viticulturists with small and medium-sized farms, 19% of them young. On the other hand, 6% of the authorized area is allocated to young people new to the wine sector.
The regions that have obtained the largest new plantation area are Castilla-La Mancha, with 689 hectares, followed by Castilla y León, with 314 and Catalonia, with 130 hectares.
These authorizations were granted after an analysis of a total requested area of 3,213 hectares, which was reduced to 2,375 after applying the admissibility criteria and the maximum limit of 5 hectares per applicant.
It is important to point out that the demand for authorizations in the wine sector maintains its downward trend. The area requested this year has decreased by 16% compared to 2022, which in turn had already decreased by 17% compared to the 2021 financial year.
The autonomous communities must notify the authorizations granted to the beneficiaries before August 1.
The new system of authorizations for vineyard plantations, which entered into force on January 1, 2016, replaces the old system of rights. This new system allows a controlled growth of the production potential.
On December 28, 2022, the resolution of the General Directorate of Agricultural Production and Market was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), establishing a surface limit for the concession of new plantations for 2023 of 0.15% of the vineyard planted area as of July 31, 2022. This is equivalent to 1,407 hectares, taking into account the recommendation presented by the Spanish Wine Interprofessional Organization.
