The first table grapes from open-field vineyards appeared in city markets in Moldova a week ago, which is about ten days earlier than last year, according to EastFruit.com. Experts say these are grapes of such types as “Pink Dubovski” and “Super Extra” grown in southeastern Moldova on both sides of the Nistru River, in “half-protected” vineyards.
The first lots are small. The farmers retail them themselves without intermediary wholesalers. The prices are about 35-40 lei/kg (US$1.83-2.09 per kg), said the source, noting that the first wholesale lots of early table grapes were purchased from vineyards at such a price last August.
This year, the initial retail price will probably appear at the end of this week, when individual vineyards that began the harvest will provide the first commercial batches. By the way, the first refrigerator trucks with grapes last August were sold to Romania. In 2022, it seems that most of the summer grapes will be sold on the domestic market, according to experts of associations of agricultural producers, given the inappropriately high initial prices of almost all types of fruit.
At the same time, according to representatives of winegrowing organizations, the farmers will have to take into account the fact that the Italians farmers, for example, at the end of July sell table grapes to Germanophone countries at a wholesale price of about €2 per kg.
