Montenegro enters annual grape harvest season

The grape harvest season, known as 'the berba', is currently underway in Montenegro, particularly in the wine villages south of Skadar Lake. This period marks the most active time in the Montenegrin wine calendar, characterized by the opening of family stone cellars and manual harvesting across various regions.

Harvest timing depends on the grape variety. The indigenous white grape Krstač is typically picked from late August through mid-September. The flagship red Vranac, along with the historic Kratošija, is harvested by hand from mid-September into early October. On a larger scale, the company Plantaže conducts harvesting on the Ćemovsko polje plain near Podgorica from August through the end of September, employing over 2,000 people with approximately 95% of the work done by hand.

The Crmnica valley remains the historic heart of the country’s viticulture and the origin of the Vranac grape. In this region, harvesting is managed by small, fragmented family holdings, with schedules varying from the third week of September into October.