This year's poor grape harvest hurt the production of Italy's Novello new wine which was reduced by some 10%, sector sources said.
According to Federagri-Confcooperative, this year's production of new wine was just over 14 million bottles, compared to 15.6 million bottles in 2006.
Vino Novello 2007 will officially make its debut on November 4, 11 days before its more famous French cousin, Beaujolais Nouveau, which cannot be opened until the third Thursday of November, this year November 15.
Vino Novello, observed Fedagri-Confcooperative chairman Paolo Bruni, "is the first taste we have of the quality of a year's production".
According to the Italian Union of Winemakers (UIV), 2007 will be remembered for having the earliest and leanest wine grape harvest in the past 30 years.
Grape picking began 15-20 days ahead of usual this year because of early heat waves and prolonged drought.
However, the unusual weather appears to have produced an abundant harvest of quality grapes. The general consensus is that quality should be very good and even excellent in some parts of Italy, including the northeast region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
For the 20th year in a row, Vicenza's Salone Novello, the only trade fair dedicated to Italian new wine, will host the official opening of the new wine at one minute past midnight Saturday.
Novello, like Beaujolais Nouveau, is a light, fruity red wine which by law must be bottled within a year of the harvest, but in practice is bottled within a few weeks.
Although connoisseurs may snub it, Novello has become increasingly popular, especially among young people, thanks to its clear red color, fruity taste and low alcoholic content, only 11%.
The fruity flavour of new wine is in part due to the fact that the juice of the grapes is not left too long with the grape skins which contain the chemical tannin.
This allows winemakers to blend several types of grapes and the wine can even be served chilled like white wines.
One of the main differences between Novello and Beaujolais is that several of the Italian wines retain some of the carbonation used to accelerate the fermentation process while the French Nouveau is traditionally flat.
