colheita

Colheita is a Portuguese noun meaning harvest. In general use, it refers to the annual act or period of gathering crops and the yield obtained during a given season. The term is used across Portuguese-speaking countries, such as Portugal and Brazil, and covers a wide range of crops, including grapes, coffee, sugarcane, and cereals. The concept is closely tied to agricultural cycles and is influenced by weather, climate, and farming practices.

In viticulture, colheita has a technical meaning in wine production, especially regarding Port wine. A Colheita Port is produced from grapes harvested in a single year and aged in wooden casks for a minimum of seven years before bottling. The label typically carries the harvest year, and the wine reflects the character of that vintage along with extended wood aging. This category differs from Vintage Port, which comes from a single year but is bottled after a shorter period in cask and may be aged further in bottle, and from aged tawny Ports that blend wines from multiple harvests.

The term colheita is also used in the context of late-harvest wines (colheita tardia) in Portuguese-speaking wine traditions, referring to grapes left on the vine longer to accumulate sugar and develop concentrated flavors, usually producing dessert-style wines. Beyond wine, colheita remains a common term in agricultural reporting and everyday language to denote the harvest season and its outcomes.