Douro. IVDP has 15 days to open applications for extraordinary support

O Government approved on September 4, in the Council of Ministers, an exception scheme, with an overall allocation of 12 million euros, to ensure a minimum yield to Douro wine growers who, due to current market difficulties, cannot sell all their grapes in the 2026-2027 campaign.

The ordinance establishing the rules for access to support, signed by the Minister of Agriculture and Sea, was published today in Diário da República (DR) and states that the period of submission of applications is opened by notice of the IVDP released on their website within 15 days from Wednesday.

Once the date has been fixed by the IVDP, wine growers have 15 days to submit the application, and this period “is unique and improbable for all wine growers” of the Douro Demarcated Region (RDD).

Government support comes at a time when harvests in the Douro are already in a final stretch and after the small and medium-sized ones have called for aid following the worsening of difficulties in the disposal of the grape and the threat of selling production at reduced prices and below production costs.

This year harvests in the Douro began about two weeks earlier, so many consider that the government measure is already too late.

Natural or legal persons who are wine growers in the RDD, including members of cooperative wineries, may benefit from this support.

The submission of applications shall be made by submitting an electronic form available on the IVDP website and, in this application, the winegrower declares the intention of not collecting all or part of its production, identifying the parcels covered.

The beneficiaries must keep the grapes not harvested on the vines of the parcels identified in the application until on-the-spot checks are carried out by the public institute.

According to the ordinance, winegrowers may not “pick, process, market or in any way address the unharvest grapes, from the date of submission of the application and until the payment is made directly by the IVDP, at once and by bank transfer”.

The winegrower must also allow access to the sites and documents necessary for monitoring and monitoring support.

The amount allocated will be calculated by comparing the production declared in 2026 with the average production of each wine grower in the previous five years, with the concession limited to EUR 1,125 per hectare.

The IVDP, based in Peso da Régua, district of Vila Real, decides the applications within eight days of the expiry of the deadline for submitting applications.

If the applications exceed the budget allocation of EUR 12 million, a report shall be applied, i.e. a proportional reduction of the individual amount.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the Sea has already said that this exception regime “is inserted in a framework of measures to normalize the wine sector, safeguard economic, social and environmental sustainability, and protect the producers and cultural and landscape heritage of the Durian region.”.

According to the ordinance, this measure is intended to “ensure these wine growers a minimum income, preventing the abandonment of the vineyard and the consequent degradation of the wine-growing landscape and the productive potential of the region”.

It is a “support for the income of the wine grower, not a measure of management or supply regulation”, and is “granted under the conditions of the de minimis agricultural scheme, without prejudice to full compliance with the rules applicable to the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products”.

The ordinance enters into force on Wednesday, day after its publication.