In Brief : Good Champagne Year Expected

EPERNAY, France — The wine harvest of 220 million bottles from the Champagne area promises to produce wine and champagne of “exceptional quality” next spring, industry officials said today.

Viticulturalists say this year’s harvest is “average” in size compared with the 264.4-million-bottle yield in 1987, in line with a production pattern in which two good years are generally followed by a poor or moderate season.

On the eve of the harvest, stocks stood at 712 million bottles, or more than three years’ worth of sales, including a carry-over of 123 million bottles from 1986 and 1987, the Interprofessional Committee of Wines from Champagne said.

The top quality of this year’s returns had proved the merits of a newly implemented system of multiple harvesting, officials said.

The wines will be excellent because the Champagne region in northern France had a week of full sun at the start of September at a crucial period in the grapes’ ripening process, the committee said.